Former Michigan State QB listed as one of college football’s ‘Tier 1’ QBs

Can you guys believe that it’s already almost August? We’re a little over a month away from kickoff and the number of Saturdays without football is shrinking by the day.

Michigan State fans are gearing up for what they hope is the spark to a turnaround in year one of Pat Fitzgerald. He’s going to have a tough task on his hands, but at least he’ll have a starting quarterback returning with some experience which makes the job a little easier on a coach. Alessio Milivojevic is back as a partially-proven QB1 (that’s what we’re going to call a four-game sample size) with a decent offense for him to work with.

But some fans can’t help but wonder “what if” about several past Michigan State QB1s. They’re hoping that Milivojevic doesn’t join that list, but his predecessors were all on it.

It started with Katin Houser and Sam Leavitt and then it was Aidan Chiles. Three quarterbacks who were all expected to be stars at Michigan State all left after disappointingly short Spartan careers.

Now one of them is listed as a “Tier 1” quarterback in college football. This is an exclusive list that includes just eight quarterbacks in the entire FBS.

Sam Leavitt will be one of the worst cases of “what if” in Michigan State football history. He was very obviously talented enough to be QB1 as a true freshman when he split time with Katin Houser and Noah Kim but when the Mel Tucker era shifted into the Jonathan Smith era, he was out.

It was also obvious that Smith was bringing Chiles with him and everyone was OK with that at the time because his guy was very talented. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for him in East Lansing.

And Spartan fans had to sit by and watch as Leavitt became a star at Arizona State, leading them to a College Football Playoff, before transferring to LSU as Lane Kiffin’s prized transfer. Meanwhile, Chiles was getting hung out to dry by his offensive line and coaching staff and his Spartan career came to a disappointing end in 2025 after two straight bowl-less seasons under Smith.

All you can do is laugh it off.

Alessio Milivojevic has a chance to prove himself

Milivojevic isn’t sitting around worrying about rankings of former Spartan quarterbacks nor is he concerned about where the experts have him going; he’s just working.

After finishing the 2025 season with over 1,200 yards and 10 touchdowns with a completion percentage approaching 65, Milivojevic knows that he’s on the right track. He has some work to do before he jumps any Big Ten quarterback tiers (he was recently ranked in the sixth tier), but he’ll get to face a couple of former Spartans (Chiles, Houser, Noah Kim) and he’ll prove that Michigan State ended up with the best guy.

I’m excited to see the Chiles vs. Milivojevic and Houser vs. Milivojevic battles this fall. If Alessio can win both of those, his stock price is going to shoot through the roof.

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