Transfer Portal Creates Highly Unusual Circumstance for MSU
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Michigan State is going to experience something next year that no other team has probably gone through in college football history.
The Spartans are set to go up against not one, not two, but THREE quarterbacks next year who have played for MSU in the past during the 2026 season. Michigan State will face Noah Kim and Eastern Michigan, Katin Houser and Illinois, and Aidan Chiles and Northwestern next fall. All three of those games will be at Spartan Stadium, and all three quarterbacks are clear favorites to start for their respective teams.
Oh yeah, and Sam Leavitt is currently in the portal. Chances are that he will not wind up on MSU's schedule, but if he were, Oregon would make the most sense. The Ducks also come to East Lansing in 2026.
Regardless of where Leavitt ends up, playing three of one's program's former quarterbacks in one season is pretty absurd. This doesn't become possible without the transfer portal, but even in this day and age, the odds of this aligning feel pretty slim.
How We Got Here
Noah Kim
Like many of Michigan State's problems, we have to go back to the Mel Tucker era. MSU had three relatively realistic options to be QB1 for the 2023 season: Kim, Houser, and Leavitt. Tucker's staff went with Kim. Things actually started well; Kim threw for 571 yards, five touchdowns, and had no picks during his first two starts against Central Michigan and FCS Richmond.
After Tucker was fired and the Spartans started facing stiffer competition, things went downhill fast. Kim had one touchdown pass to six picks during three starts against Washington, Maryland, and Iowa before being benched for Houser.
At the conclusion of the 2023 season, Kim transferred to Coastal Carolina, but he lost out on the starting job there for 2024 as well. Kim then went to Eastern Michigan and became the MAC's leading passer this past year.
On Wednesday, EMU announced that Kim had been granted an additional year of eligibility from the NCAA, setting up his return to East Lansing, as the Eagles are a part of MSU's non-conference schedule. It'll be Kim's seventh year of college football, spanning back to the 2020 season.
Katin Houser
Houser is the person who took over once Kim got benched. He threw for 1,130 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions during his redshirt freshman year at Michigan State, starting the final seven games of the year.
Just like Kim, Houser also decided to enter the transfer portal and ended up initially losing a quarterback battle at a Group of Five school --- Houser's being East Carolina. The same thing ended up happening two years in a row, with the initial starter being benched and ECU's head coach being fired mid-season. Houser stuck with the Pirates, became one of the better quarterbacks in the G5 this year, and that's led to his opportunity at Illinois.
Aidan Chiles
Chiles is the quarterback who emerged from the 2023 offseason where Kim, Houser, and Leavitt transferred. The former four-star recruit had been a backup who had flashed big-time potential as a true freshman at Oregon State, and Jonathan Smith brought Chiles with him to MSU.
The promise of Chiles never fully materialized, though. He was benched for Alessio Milivojevic towards the end of the season, entered the portal, and ended up committing to Northwestern. Other names and rumored interested schools that had popped up in Chiles' portal recruitment include Nebraska, Cincinnati, and Clemson.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.
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