Michigan State quarterbacks coach Jon Boyer, right, talks with MSU quarterback Aidan Chiles during football practice on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in East Lansing. Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

What MSU's Chiles, QB Coach Emphasize During Games

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Aidan Champion | Last updated Sep 5, 2025 8:00 AM ET

In football, you have to have a short-term memory. Whether you're coming off a good or bad play, you have to learn from it and then quickly move past it.

Michigan State junior quarterback Aidan Chiles made a lot of mistakes in his first year with the Spartans, which can greatly test your composure as a young quarterback.

But Chiles looked more comfortable in the Spartans' Week 1 victory over Western Michigan. We had heard throughout all of fall camp that the veteran quarterback had grown in maturity, and it was evident in that season opener.

A lot of that could probably be attributed to Chiles' new quarterback coach, Jon Boyer, who had worked with him when the two were together at Oregon State.

"Adding Boyer to the room is a great addition, for sure," Chiles had said after the Spartans' first practice of fall camp. "Just helping me on the mental side, for sure. We do the physical things with the strength staff and stuff on the field, but the mental side is big with coach Boyer, and I really love that about him because he's real tedious about his work."

Aidan Chiles and Jon Boyer's sideline discussions

Last Friday was his first time as a Spartan that Chiles got to lean on Boyer on the sideline. With Boyer, the mantra is always "What's next?"

"I come off the field, he (Boyer) asks me like, 'What did you see?' And I tell him what I saw," Chiles said on Tuesday. "And after that, he'll be like, 'OK, well let's go watch it.' And so, we'll go watch it on the iPad, and he'll let me know what he saw, and then, we'll talk about it and be like, 'OK, well, next drive, we'll go out, and if we see this again, then we'll do this.'

"It's just being able to prepare for what's next. We always talk about it. What is next? Win. And just grow off of what you just did in the last drive, and then come back, no matter if you scored, threw a pick, fumbled, whatever happened, go out next drive, and what is next?"