Michigan State 2024 Spring Football Preview: Newcomers to watch

A new era is set to begin in East Lansing. Michigan State football, under new head coach Jonathan Smith and nine new on-field assistant coaches (wide receivers coach Courtney Hawkins was retained from the previous regime), will open with its first of 15 spring practice sessions on March 19.

Also joining an almost entirely new coaching staff are 21 midyear enrollees. Eleven of those 21 players are transfers. The remaining 10 are early enrollees as true freshmen, including preferred walk-on defensive back DJ Kennard.

Spring practices are a time for some newcomers to break into the playing group and possibly into the first-team once the opening week of the regular season arrives. Here are three newcomers who Spartans Illustrated will be keeping a close eye on throughout spring practices, although many of the newbies could find immediate roles.

Likely the player most Michigan State fans are looking most forward to seeing in action this spring, Oregon State transfer Aidan Chiles arrived in East Lansing to much fanfare He announced his commitment to the Spartans in December of 2023 and arrived in January of 2024. Chiles was a four-star prospect out of high school and played his true freshman season with Smith and offensive coordinator.quarterbacks coach Brian Lindgren in Corvallis.

When Smith, Lindgren and company made the decision to come to East Lansing, Chiles quickly followed because there are no other coaches he wants to be coached and developed by, and he has built an incredible bond with them. His parents also feel comfortable knowing that the Michigan State coaching staff will take good care of him on and off the field.

"When you find your people – my son has found his people – and when he's comfortable and when he's confident with that, it makes us very comfortable and confident," Nikki Chiles, Aidan's mother, previously told Spartans Illustrated. "And the same people that he found, I mean, they’re our people, too. We appreciate those coaches, from Coach Smith and his whole team, we just really appreciate them. So yes, we felt very comfortable and confident (with Aidan's decision to transfer to MSU) – because our son does.”

In his nine games played at Oregon State , Chiles was impressive for a true freshman quarterback. He threw for over 300 yards and four touchdowns. Maybe more impressively, he completed 68.6% of his pass attempts and threw a grand total of zero interceptions. He also ran for three additional scores in 2023.

There’s a reason why Chiles played nine games in Corvallis last season despite not even being the starting quarterback: The coaching staff thinks highly of him. The staff not only are high on his on-field abilities, but also his personality.

“Aidan’s got a really cool personality,” Lindgren said about Chiles earlier this month. “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.”

Chiles is the favorite to land the starting quarterback job heading into spring practice.

Nick Marsh is entering his first spring camp in college football. The early enrollee true freshman wide receiver was a four-star prospect out of River Rouge, Michigan. It was an eventful recruitment for Marsh. He first committed to Michigan State under the previous regime in July of 2022 before decommitting in March of 2023 and then eventually and recommitting to the Spartans in July of 2023.

When Smith and the new staff took over, they immediately made retaining him in the Spartans'2024 class a top priority and made sure he was locked in. Smith retaining Hawkins as wide receivers coach was also big in keeping in Marsh in the fold.

At 6-foot-3 and over 200 pounds, Marsh has a great build for a true freshman receiver. He is excellent at winning contested balls with his solid frame. There will be a learning curve and he will obviously have to earn it, but don’t be shocked if Marsh impresses the coaching staff early on in spring ball and eventually finds early playing time this fall.

With a pretty thin wide receivers room heading into spring ball, Marsh could make a name for himself in East Lansing with a solid spring and insert himself among the top group of wideouts on the team alongside the likes of Montorie Foster Jr., Jaron Glover, Antonio Gates Jr. and others.

Wayne Matthews III didn’t arrive in East Lansing with as much fanfare as some other transfers this offseason. But Matthews is a workhorse and a tackling machine, who is also strong in pass coverage.

He announced his commitment to the Spartans on Jan. 10 and got to campus quickly as a midyear enrollee.

Matthews spent his first three seasons in college with Old Dominion in the Sun Belt Conference. He played 10 games in 2022 after redshirting the year prior. Matthews burst onto the scene at Old Dominion in 2023.

He played 936 snaps throughout the entire 2023 season, which was fourth most among all FBS linebackers, according to Pro Football Focus. Matthews posted 135 tackles, which ranked 11th in the country, 9.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, three pass break-ups, three forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.

The Maryland native has two years of eligibility remaining and is good enough to mix in with a solid Michigan State linebackers room that features returning veterans like Cal Haladay and Darius Snow, and talented young players like Jordan Hall. Another new linebacker to watch who can perhaps make an instant impact is Wisconsin transfer and Michigan native Jordan Turner.

Michigan State opens spring practice on Tuesday, March 19 and it will culminate with the Spring Showcase on Saturday, April 20 inside Spartan Stadium. Read Spartans Illustrated's spring storylines to watch article here.

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