Jonathan Smith wants to celebrate with a win for his seniors

Michigan State is coming off a bye week, its second of the 2025 season, and has the challenge this Saturday of facing the Penn State Nittany Lions (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time on CBS) in the final game at Spartan Stadium on the campaign. The Land-Grant Trophy will also be on the line.

Both teams will be competing for their first win in Big Ten play this season with each program sitting at 0-6 in the conference. Both squads also are riding six-game losing streaks, but the skid will end for one program this weekend.

While the opportunity to make a bowl game still exists for MSU, the odds for that are very low — 2.3% to be exact, according to Spartans Illustrated's Paul Fanson. However, a win against Penn State is the needed first step. The Spartans must win out in their final three games of the season to be eligible, but all three teams they play will also be fighting for the same thing.

With Michigan State fighting for its season, and questions regarding the future of the coaching staff swirling, this begs the question of who MSU will start at quarterback against Penn State. Will it be redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic or junior and team captain Aidan Chiles? Or will the Spartans utilize both Milivojevic and Chiles throughout the game? 

Milivojevic made his first career start for the Spartans in their last game against Minnesota, and despite the overtime loss to the Golden Gophers, he had a strong performance. Meanwhile, Chiles started the previous 20 games for Michigan State.

MSU head coach Jonathan Smith has a tough decision to make at the quarterback position, but he is taking it day by day and has not made a decision yet. He will see how the week of practice plays out.

“Both those guys' skill sets present some positive things, so we’re going to let that play out again this week,” Smith said about Milivojevic and Chiles. 

Using two quarterbacks during the game on Saturday could be a viable route for Smith to take, as Milivojevic performed well in his first start and showed he could move the offense and Chiles is dynamic with both his strong arm and running ability. However, doing so could create consistency problems for the quarterback position.

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