College football is littered with former Spartans and while Pat Fitzgerald’s team is set to face three former Michigan State QB1s this fall, there will be more familiar faces in different-colored jerseys.
Michigan State won’t get to face guys like Sam Leavitt (LSU) or Nick Marsh (Indiana), but the Spartans will host three different former starting quarterbacks at Spartan Stadium.
The first will be Noah Kim (Eastern Michigan) in Week 2, followed by Katin Houser (Illinois) and Aidan Chiles (Northwestern) in the month of October. That Week 2 showdown against Kim will be especially interesting because he’s not the only former Spartan that’s projected to start for Eastern Michigan this season.
According to Eastern Michigan’s depth chart release ahead of a Week 0 matchup with Sacramento State, the Eagles are also projected to start former four-star interior offensive lineman Cole Dellinger at right guard, who was a prized recruit from the Mel Tucker era, and Caleb Coley — another Tucker recruit — at cornerback.
#EMUFB first depth chart of the season. Sacramento State comes to town for a Week 0 matchup. pic.twitter.com/4vbbLO2TwQ
— The Ypsilanti Eleven (by Alex Alvarado) (@AlexYpsilanti11) August 24, 2026
All three of those guys are entering their final seasons of college football and they’re probably all wanting a little revenge on Michigan State. They all probably have a few friends left on the team, but beating the program that didn’t meet their expectations with playing time and where they had a turbulent time with coaching changes has to be atop their wish list this season.
Kim had his opportunity as the Spartans’ QB1, but his inconsistencies forced the makeshift staff in 2023 to shuffle between him, Houser, and Leavitt. He was just never a good fit as a Big Ten quarterback but now he gets to prove that he can still ball.
Dellinger and Coley never really cracked the two-deep depth chart. Dellinger came in as a highly-touted recruit but there was just never an opportunity for him on the interior, for some reason. Coley played 10 games over three years and made a start, but he didn’t stick around for Jonathan Smith’s second season in 2025.
This is a game that would already be embarrassing to lose, but if the Spartans were to be upset by Kim, Coley, and Dellinger (three guys they basically cut loose), that would add salt to the wound.
No game on Michigan State schedule is a “gimme”
While everyone seems to be marking Michigan State’s first two games down as Ws, there really isn’t a game on the schedule that screams “locked in W”.
Obviously Toledo and Eastern Michigan should be wins, and they probably will be, but Toledo is consistently one of the better teams in the MAC and Eastern features three former Spartans, including its QB1, who will probably be out for blood in Week 2. Both of those games could be traps on the schedule for a team that’s projected to win 3-4 games under a new head coach.
The schedule only gets tougher from there and the “easy” games are against teams like Nebraska, Wisconsin (away), Illinois, Northwestern, UCLA (away), and Rutgers (away). All of those easier games, on paper, could come against teams that will be headed to a bowl game — maybe outside of Rutgers.
If Fitzgerald wants to get Michigan State back to a bowl game this year, he’s going to have to sweep those first two MAC games (obviously) and take care of home field advantage, for the most part, while stealing 1-2 on the road.
This schedule is going to be rough, and it doesn’t even include Ohio State, Penn State, or USC.
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