Indiana
Michigan State football searches for answers amid QB question vs surging Indiana
MSU football analysis after Jonathan Smith’s presser ahead of Indiana
The Lansing State Journal’s Graham Couch and the Detroit Free Press’ Chris Solari discuss the situation surrounding Jonathan Smith and MSU football.
EAST LANSING – There remain a lot of questions about why Michigan State football fell apart against UCLA. And about the future of the coaching staff.
Offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren knows its his job to find the answers. In a hurry. With a dominating and punishing Indiana defense waiting.
“I told the offense I’m gonna do all I can to put together an awesome plan this week, to put you guys in the best position to go make plays and go win a game on Saturday,” Lindgren said Tuesday, Oct. 14.
As Year 2 with coach Jonathan Smith and Lindgren continues to spiral, with the Spartans mired in a three-game losing streak, the Hoosiers and second-year coach Curt Cignetti are flourishing. After earning a College Football Playoff berth last season, No. 3 Indiana is 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big Ten as it prepares to host MSU (3-3, 0-3).
The Spartans are coming off a humiliating 38-13 homecoming loss to the Bruins on Saturday in which the offense fell apart after opening with a touchdown drive for the fifth time in six games this season. MSU had 253 yards of total offense, six drives of four or fewer plays and watched starting quarterback Aidan Chiles get knocked out of the game early in the third quarter. Chiles is questionable for the 3:30 p.m. game in Bloomington, Indiana (Peacock).
Lindgren and Smith had the entire team watch the UCLA game back together rather than as position groups. Both he and Lindren felt that helped create better accountability.
As for why the Spartans, playing at home, lacked the competitive bounce-back and fight they showed in their previous losses on the road at USC and Nebraska?
“I don’t know if I completely have the answer,” tight end Jack Velling said Tuesday. “I think we still have the fight, just it wasn’t clicking. Really, I don’t have the answer to that. But we still got full confidence in this team and this staff.”
The Spartans scored fewer than 18 points against a conference opponent for the seventh time in 15 Big Ten games under Smith and Lindgren. Chiles has started every game since arriving with the staff as a transfer from Oregon State before last season. MSU is 3-9 in conference play and 8-10 overall under Smith.
But it was the dismal, lifeless showing against UCLA that enraged MSU fans and have them calling for changes. Smith and Lindgren hear it and have said the need to improve is urgent.
“The pressure at this level comes with the job, it comes with the territory. It’s part of it,” Lindgren said. “You got people in the building that you trust and you’ve worked with before. When you get to times of adversity, you just gotta keep going to work and trust that those around you are gonna take care of their business and get the job done at a high level.”
Lindgren said Cignetti’s success has been structured around 13 players he brought with him from James Madison in 2024, when the Hoosiers went 11-2 and 8-1 in the Big Ten to finish No. 10 in the US LBM Coaches Poll. Indiana lost in the CFP first round at Notre Dame, 27-17.
In the Hoosiers’ 47-10 blowout win at MSU last season, they sacked Chiles (who also left that game with an injury) and backup Tommy Schuster seven times.
Should Chiles be unable to play this week, the Spartans would give redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic his first career start against an IU defense tied for third in the Football Bowl Subdivision with 22 sacks this season, No. 4 in both total defense (229 yards per game) and scoring (11.3 points) and sixth in passing yards allowed (142.2).
MSU’s offensive line has given up 15 sacks of the elusive Chiles this season, which ranks tied for 25th-most allowed nationally. He finished 8-for-17 passing for 66 yards with a lost fumble on his one sack against the Bruins.
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The less-mobile Milivojevic took over early in the third quarter, and finished 8-for-18 for 100 yards with a touchdown. However, the Bruins already were leading by 17 points when Milivojevic entered the game and stretched it to 31 by the end of the third quarter while mostly playing soft coverage with minimal front-seven pressure the rest of the way.
“Alessio, we’ve got a lot of trust in him,” Lindgren said. “I think it’s definitely gonna be a challenge. That defense gives you a ton of different looks in the secondary. They’re super-active up front. … It would be a challenging game but an opportunity that he would welcome.”
Milivojevic is 14-for-27 for 171 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions in 50 career collegiate snaps the past two seasons (24 against UCLA, 12 against Nebraska, 12 against Western Michigan and two last season against Rutgers).
Also if Chiles is ruled out, that likely would mean true freshman Leo Hannan – who has yet to play – would be the backup. Lindgren said he did not consider giving Hannan a series late in the UCLA game to give him his first experience in college.
“It wasn’t necessarily discussed,” Lindgren said. “I think Leo would be ready if we put him in there. Looking back at it, that would’ve been something that I think would have been good. It’s always nice to get a young guy a little taste of action before he’s maybe forced into action at some point.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man is dead after a shooting Thursday night on Indy’s near east side, police say.
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, just after 8 p.m., officers were called to the 2000 block of East Washington Street on a report of a person shot.
When officers arrived, they found an adult male inside an apartment with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds.
Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services transported the man to a hospital in critical condition, where died shortly after arriving.
Homicide detectives responded to the scene to begin the investigation.
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Gov. Mike Braun asked state regulators to reconsider their decision to greenlight a $71 million rate increase for AES Indiana, doubling down on his condemnation of a move that could leave Indianapolis residents with higher electrical bills for years.
Braun wrote in a June 18 news release that he had asked Indiana Utility Counselor Abby Gray, who heads the office representing ratepayers in proceedings before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, to petition for a rehearing of the AES rate case.
Gray indicated in the release that her office would submit the petition shortly. No petition had been posted on the IURC’s online docket as of this story’s publication.
The rate increase, which was approved by the IURC on June 17, was substantially less than the $192 million increase that AES initially requested. It was also less than the amount proposed in a settlement last October between AES and major electricity consumers.
But the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, which Gray leads, came out strongly against any increase to AES’s base rates. In September, the OUCC called for a $21 million reduction instead.
As the Republican Party grapples with rising discontent over affordability, Braun has used opposition to rising utility rates to telegraph that he’s committed to keeping costs down for Indiana residents. He signed a law in February that allows the state to make rate-setting decisions that reward or penalize utilities based on metrics including affordability.
In March, he told reporters that he would take on Indiana’s five investor-owned utilities, describing himself as the “new sheriff in town.”
And after the IURC voted 3-1 to approve the AES rate increase, he wrote in a post to X that he was “deeply disappointed.”
Braun wrote in the June 18 news release that he had appointed Gray, a longtime OUCC lawyer and judge, to her current post because he knew she “would help me fight for Hoosiers.”
According to AES’s estimates, the rate increase will cost households an additional $5 per month for every 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity they use, beginning in July. A second hike will take effect in January.
Tilly Robinson is a Pulliam fellow for the Indianapolis Star. She can be reached at tilly.robinson@indystar.com.
The Protect College Sports Act, legislation meant to introduce and codify sweeping reforms related to college athletics, passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday morning.
It now heads to the Senate floor.
The bill passed out of committee by a 19-9 vote. Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young voted no, his decision reflecting Big Ten concerns over the bill.
A spokesman for Sen. Young told IndyStar, “Senator Young hopes that additional changes can be made to the bill to address concerns raised by the Big Ten.”
Co-sponsored by Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the Protect College Sports Act represents Congress’ most substantial success so far in a yearslong effort to bring legislative reform to college athletics. Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders in college sports — including the NCAA, member conferences and schools, and other major players — have lobbied for national solutions to what have become state and regional problems.
Several pieces of legislation have been introduced across the last several years, only to fizzle long before reaching the floor of either chamber. The SCORE Act, introduced last year in the House of Representatives, gained some traction and passed out of committee, but was never brought to the floor.
Which makes Thursday’s news meaningful. Moving the Protect College Sports Act to the Senate floor, while not a guarantee of any outcome, potentially takes the bill past a threshold no other such piece of reformative legislation has yet been able to cross.
Cruz told Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger on Thursday that Cruz believes Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is committed to introducing the bill to the Senate floor soon.
The bill provides a legal framework for a host of potential reforms and protections for college sports. It grants limited antitrust protection to the NCAA, places limits on certain things including potential conference realignment, builds safeguards meant to protect non-revenue and Olympic sports, addresses potential broadcast rights reforms, and more.
It enjoys significant backing, and not just among leaders in college sports. This week, the NFL, its players’ association, the National Basketball Players Association and Major League Baseball all voiced their support for the bill.
Two key constituencies not in lockstep on the bill voiced their own concerns Thursday.
In a joint statement issued just after 10 a.m. Thursday, the Big Ten and SEC — far and away the two most powerful conferences and arguably two greatest power centers, full stop, in college athletics — suggested they still hold significant reservations over the bill.
“From the outset, we identified a set of essential revisions to the PCSA necessary for the long-term sustainability of college athletics,” the statement read. “We have worked with both majority and minority staff to advance those revisions, which focus on better supporting student-athletes and stabilizing the college sports environment. We continue to believe revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.
“Despite our sustained engagement and good faith efforts, these critical revisions have not been accepted.”
The statement went on to note the “several Commerce Committee members that share our concerns and support these recommendations.”
Young is one of several members of the committee representing a Big Ten state, including one of three Republicans. He is the only Republican member of the committee whose state contains multiple schools in the conference.
Allowing for those reservations, Thursday’s news is still significant. It marks the first time a bipartisan bill on the subject has reached this point in the Senate and, should it be brought to the floor, it would be the first such legislation to reach that stage, in either chamber.
The bill could be brought to the Senate floor as early as July, though that timeline remains fluid.
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