Aidan Chiles settles in at Northwestern after Oregon State, Michigan State

The fourth-year quarterback has thrown six touchdown passes without an interception and scored the first TD at Northwestern's new Ryan Field in a win over Penn State.

Aidan Chiles is in his fourth season of college football and on his third campus, and the move to Northwestern has suited the quarterback from Long Beach, California. After earlier tenures at Oregon State and Michigan State, Chiles now runs the Wildcats offense under offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and quarterbacks coach Jerry Neuheisel.

He wasted no time writing himself into the program's record book. In the first game played at the rebuilt Ryan Field on Friday, Oct. 2, Chiles scored the stadium's inaugural touchdown, and Northwestern defeated Penn State 34-13 in a venue that seats 35,000 and cost more than $870 million to construct.

In that game Chiles completed 10 of 14 passes for 93 yards and gained 21 yards and a touchdown on six carries. His rushing was one piece of a 413-yard night on the ground for the Wildcats.

Across four games this season, Chiles has connected on 63 of 89 throws for 900 yards with six touchdowns and no interceptions. He has also run for 41 yards and five touchdowns on 36 attempts, production that reflects the dual-threat dimension he brings to the offense.

The victory over the Nittany Lions capped the season's most demanding stretch to date, following a meeting with Indiana, the defending national champion. Oregon, Ohio State and Iowa are still to come on Northwestern's schedule. "Those are the games you want to play in and those are the games you watch when you are a little kid," Chiles told USA TODAY Sports. "I'm grateful for the opportunity. I'm ready."

Chiles reached Evanston after three seasons under head coach Jonathan Smith, split between Oregon State and Michigan State, and another trip through the transfer portal. Head coach David Braun told reporters on Aug. 25 that "Aidan has done a tremendous job since his arrival," adding that "the partnership between those three is really special" — referring to his quarterback, Kelly and Neuheisel — and that joining a team halfway through spring ball is not easy.

The connection between Chiles and Kelly goes back years. A four-star quarterback at Downey High School, Chiles took a recruiting visit to UCLA in 2022 while Kelly was the Bruins' head coach, and his commitment to Northwestern came less than a week after Kelly was hired as the Wildcats' offensive coordinator.

Kelly, speaking to the Big Ten Network this fall, said he has known Chiles since his high school days and pointed to a body of work few quarterbacks can match. "The one thing he has besides his talent is that he's played 30-plus games of Power 4 football," Kelly said, noting that Chiles also played as a true freshman at Oregon State, which he called rare.

Chiles, viewed entering the season as a late-round prospect for the 2027 NFL Draft, has also grown into a leadership role at his newest school. "Coming to a new team was a new experience for me, but it was challenging in all the right ways," Chiles said. "It's made me a better person and a better player and the guys around me have motivated me to become the leader that I am."