Just days after the regular season ended in late November, Brian Lindgren touched down in Mid-Michigan, as the new offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach for Michigan State.
His wife called him and told him how great of a first day on the job he was having, tongue-in-cheek.
Lindgren had no scholarship quarterbacks on the roster when he arrived in East Lansing. Noah Kim, Sam Leavitt and Katin Houser all entered the transfer portal and eventually committed to other schools.
“I have never been part of anything like that,” Lindgren said on Monday about his empty quarterback room.
With the early signing period opening just a couple of weeks after he got the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach job with MSU, Lindgren had to salvage something from the 2024 high school recruiting class and use the transfer portal to fill up the quarterback room.
“It was really challenging, just the time frame of [having] two-and-a-half weeks before that first signing day,” Lindgren said. “To get Aidan [Chiles] over, when he went in [the transfer portal], was huge. But it also made it challenging at the same time. You bring in someone from your program that you were at that you recruited. What other transfer wants to come and be a part of that program when you've got a young guy that you recruited that you’re bringing in? It was really challenging talking to other transfers that way.”
The empty quarterback room was addressed with the addition of Oregon State transfer Aidan Chiles, who spent one season with Beavers backing up veteran D.J. Uiagalelei. Chiles has experience in Lindgren’s system for a year.
“I think it’s awesome to have a young guy that has experience and that will put him quite a bit ahead,” Lindgren said.
His skills on the field aside, Chiles fits the mold of the type of quarterback Lindgren wants running his offense.
“Aidan’s got a really cool personality,” Lindgren said about Chiles. “Something that we’re always looking for in recruiting a QB is like that moxie. That ‘it’ factor to where he’s got that confidence, that kind of swagger to the way that he plays. He does a really nice job of, if he does make a mistake, flushing that play, moving onto the next. And when he gets hot and getting going, he’s one of the more talented guys that I’ve been around."
Additionally, Lindgren filled out the quarterback room with the additions of North Dakota’s all-time leading passer Tommy Schuster and incoming freshmen Alessio Milivojevic and Ryland Jessee.
Why Michigan State?
Lindgren came to East Lansing after coaching under now Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith since 2018 as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for Oregon State. Over the years, Lindgren has appreciated coaching under Smith and believes in the way he treats his guys.
“Having been with Jonathan for six years and just I really believe in the way that he runs a program, and his philosophy of the way that he treats not only players, but coaches,” Lindgren said about Smith and the attractiveness of coming to Michigan State.
“... Coming to Michigan State to me, the history and the tradition of the program, getting to play and compete in the Big Ten Conference. Having recruited quarterbacks against Michigan State, I feel like it’s a national brand. It really excites me that I feel like we can get some big time talent to work with offensively.”
The competitiveness of Smith has been evident to a certain degree given his effort to build a competitive roster through the high school ranks and in the transfer portal despite arriving to Michigan State in late November.
“He’s a super competitive guy, one of the more competitive guys,” Lindgren described Smith. “And I think sometimes, even in practice, he’s real quiet, he’s very reserved. But you get around him for anything he’s doing, whether you’re playing golf, you’re shooting hoops or doing anything like that, the guy is one of the more competitive guys that I’ve been around. And it doesn’t always come off like that because he’s this very reserved, nice guy.”
Just like Smith, Lindgren is just getting settled into life in East Lansing. Last week, he flew back to Oregon, helped his wife, two sons (third and eighth grade) and daughter (seventh grade) pack to move to their new home across the country.
It’s a big adjustment for his family and kids. New home, new school, new friends, new youth sports teams, new dance studio, there’s a lot of change for the Lindgren family.
Offensive style
As Lindgren adjusts to East Lansing, his “modern pro style” offense might also take time to implement.
“We want to be multiple in the looks that we give defenses,” Lindgren described. “We want to run a few concepts. We want to execute those concepts at a high level. But we want to give the defense a lot of different looks, personnel wise, formationally with some shift and motion. Then we want to run the ball. We want to make it physical. We want to pride ourselves on marrying the run and the pass, making them look the same to try and push the ball down field and create explosives.”
Lindgren’s offense also depends on personnel. At Oregon State, he was fortunate enough to have multiple talented tight ends at the same time. As a result, he ran some 12 personnel (one running back and two tight ends) and 13 personnel (one running and three tight ends) at times. Lindgren noted that ideally his unit will be “pretty flexible in the different personnel looks,” so the Spartans can keep the defense guessing.
“The scheme being flexible enough to play off those different talents to where we can take advantage of what we got,” Lindgren added.
Matching the offense with the personnel also pertains to the quarterback position.
“We always want to play off our personnel,” he said. “Our offense a year ago with D.J. [Uiagalelei] will look different than it will with Aidan [Chiles]. We called the game a little bit differently when he was in the game a year ago just based on his skillset.
“That’s something I’ve challenged our staff to look at. ‘OK, here’s a guy that we feel like is a really talented guy. How can we build the offense around him while staying with some of the key things that we believe in?’ So that’s something that’s a project of ours that we’ve been working on. You’ll probably see a little bit of it in the spring and then going through the fall. But always want to play off his skillset and what he’s comfortable with.”
One of the coaches that Lindgren studies is Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers. Shanahan just went to the Super Bowl behind a highly successful offense that scored 61 total touchdowns this season (tied for the most in the NFL).
“Those are some of the, in my mind, best offenses in the world, some of the best minds in the world as far as offensive football,” Lindgren said about the San Francisco offense. “We study the Niners, and the Lions do a great job. They’re all kind of tied in that tree. It’s somebody that we study for sure in the offseason.”
But what specifically about those offenses appeals so much to Lindgren that he studies them?
“To me, it’s how multiple they are,” Lindgren said. “They’re able to do the same things, the same concept I guess, through multiple looks to where you’re truly keeping things simple for us. And we’ve got the wide zone concept, our guys have got hundreds if not thousands of banked reps running the wide zone, but you’re running in a multitude of different ways, where it looks like you’re doing a lot more than you really are.
“And then the big thing for me is how those guys are able to create explosive passes. And they do that by marrying the run and the pass. They make them look the same on run downs and just stay on schedule and we’re able to keep defenses off balance that way. And then to me, scoring points is about creating explosive plays and those guys are some of the best at doing that.”
Michigan State opens spring practice on Tuesday, March 19. Lindgren and the Spartans will wrap up spring ball with the Spring Showcase on Saturday, April 20 at Spartan Stadium.