MSU Football Adds New Name to Defensive Staff

Michigan State football is continuing to add interesting names with Midwestern ties to its coaching staff.

The Spartans are adding former Wisconsin linebacker Jake Chaney to their coaching staff to be the team's new assistant defensive line coach. Chaney's bio on Twitter/X confirms this fact, though he hasn't been added to the team's official coaching staff just yet.

Chaney was a highly experienced player during his time with the Badgers, playing in 45 games and making 21 starts across four seasons in Madison. Across his time on the field, Chaney made 174 career total tackles, 15 tackles for loss, five sacks, one forced fumble, and one interception. As a recruit, Chaney had received an offer from Minnesota while current MSU defensive coordinator Joe Rossi was in charge of the defense there.

This adds another experienced Big Ten player (and linebacker) to the team's coaching staff. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald played at Northwestern, special teams coordinator LeVar Woods played at Iowa, linebackers coach Max Bullough and wide receivers coach Courtney Hawkins played at MSU, defensive line coach Winston DeLattiboudere III played at Minnesota, and tight ends coach Brian Wozniak played at Wisconsin as well.

More on Chaney, Role at MSU

Of course, Chaney will get to work underneath DeLattiboudere with the defensive line room. Ironically enough, these two new coworkers attended rival schools; Chaney being a Wisconsin alum and DeLattiboudere being a Minnesota alum.

Both guys are also very young. Chaney only finished up playing after the 2024 season. DeLattiboudere is only 28 years old, completing his playing career during the 2019 college football season. Both of these guys know what the current Big Ten looks like and have enough youth to be charismatic recruiters for Michigan State now.

Chaney will end up replacing former Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons for the assistant defensive line coaching position. Simmons, a pretty productive former player for the Spartans himself, left MSU last week for a new opportunity as the linebackers coach at Division II Saginaw Valley State.

Developing the defensive line is going to be critical for the Spartans' hopes of success in 2026. The transfer portal haul for MSU there, at least on paper, has seemed a little bit underwhelming compared to what Michigan State lost. That also was not a position group that did particularly great during the 2025 season, so it's certainly a big current question mark for the Spartans right now.

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