Northwestern’s first night back in the rankings nearly turned into a self-inflicted disaster, but the No. 25 Wildcats still found a way to leave East Lansing with a 24-21 win over Michigan State.
The finish came down to a 34-yard field goal by Jackson Kleather with 2 seconds left, sealing a game that had already taken several sharp turns on special teams. Earlier, with the score tied at 21 and 3:29 remaining, Northwestern coach David Braun rolled the dice on a fake punt on fourth-and-8 from his own 28-yard line. The call failed, the pass fell incomplete, and Michigan State took over.
Braun didn’t hide from it afterward.
“We’re not going to operate off a platform of fear,” Braun told reporters afterward. “I made a decision with the fake punt, I thought it was a good call, in hindsight it wasn’t.”
He explained that Northwestern believed the look was there and wanted to avoid handing the ball back to Michigan State and quarterback Alessio Milivojevic, who finished 19 of 30 for 216 yards and two touchdowns.
“Based on the down and distance and other factors, felt we had an advantageous look,” Braun said, according to Wildcat Report. “Michigan State was moving the ball, specifically with their last punt return. Obviously in hindsight, it was a horrible decision.”
Even with that miss, Northwestern still got a lifeline. The Spartans tried to grind out the clock and set up a game-winning kick, but Liam Boyd’s 33-yard attempt was blocked with 1:05 left after the Wildcats had burned through all their timeouts trying to stop the clock.
That opened the door for Northwestern to answer. The Wildcats marched 64 yards in eight plays, setting up Kleather for his third and final field goal of the day. He had already had one try blocked, making special teams the defining thread of the night.
Afterward, Braun kept the tone aggressive.
“We didn’t expect anything less,” Braun told NBC Sports’ Caroline Pineda on Peacock. “That’s a great football team over there. It’s hard to win on the road in the Big Ten.
“Our offense, we’re not going to play from a platform of fear. We were aggressive at the end of the game.
Great stop by our defense. Offense goes down and executes.
What a finish to a great game.”
The game had extra edge from the start. It matched Pat Fitzgerald, in his first year coaching Michigan State, against the school that fired him three years ago during a hazing scandal. It also put Aidan Chiles, now Northwestern’s quarterback, against the Spartans team that benched him last season.
Fitzgerald kept pushing the home crowd in East Lansing for more energy, while Michigan State fans booed Chiles before kickoff.
Braun said Chiles “met the moment all week long just staying true to himself and to the team. Really proud of him and the team.”
Chiles responded after a rough opening stretch, finishing 18 of 27 for 226 yards while adding 67 rushing yards and a touchdown on 15 carries.
“I thought it should have been this close, that’s on us,” Chiles told Pineda. “But at the end of the day, we came out with the win. I’m just happy that I got to play football today, and that my family got to watch me.”
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