East Lansing — Some time after Michigan State’s season-ending 41-14 loss to Rutgers last November, after seniors left the field for the last time and a once hopeful season ended painfully short of redemption, Aidan Chiles stood up and addressed the elephant in the room.

In the biting cold of a snowglobe Spartan Stadium, Chiles and his teammates watched their bowl dreams disappear. A season that began with the roar of a 3-0 start to the Jonathan Smith era faded to 5-7 mediocrity. Spartan Stadium lay more than half empty by game’s end.

Chiles spoke up.

“I said the same thing I said to the press: It's not gonna look the same next year,” Chiles recalled Tuesday. “If we gotta do that without some of the guys that were in that room, then we had to, and that's what happened.”

Some fans and p

See Full Page