Aidan Chiles’ knowledge of Northwestern was limited before he transferred in this past offseason. He knew that the Wildcats were in the Big Ten and that they wore purple. That’s about it.
The veteran quarterback knew even less about the Wing-T, an old-fashioned offense defined by misdirection, strange formations and running the ball — a lot. Chiles didn’t learn about it until he was on campus in Evanston, Illinois.
Chiles did, however, know about Chip Kelly, the offensive mastermind. And Kelly knew about Chiles.
Kelly recruited Chiles when he was the head coach at UCLA four years ago, but an offer never materialized for the local prospect. Chiles started his college career at Oregon State. He even threw a touchdown in a game against Kelly’s Bruins as a freshman.
Their paths crossed again years later. Kelly, fresh off a disappointing tenure as an NFL offensive coordinator, returned to the college ranks as Northwestern’s play-caller. Chiles, who landed in the transfer portal after two underwhelming seasons at Michigan State, was intrigued by how the Wildcats wanted to use him.
“He’s had quarterbacks like myself before, and he’s dealt with programs like Northwestern before, and he’s made them better and made quarterbacks better,” Chiles told Athlon Sports. “That was really the biggest pull for me just being here and being able to learn under a guy who’s been around football for so long.”
That pairing has Northwestern — the program with the most losses in college football history — winning. The No. 20 Wildcats (6-1) are ranked for the first time since 2020. They’re also bowl-eligible in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2017-18. That purple Big Ten school came by this rare success because Kelly went back to the basics, running the Wing-T with Chiles at the heart.
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This season has been just as much a rejuvenation for Northwestern as it has been for Chiles. The Wildcats opened the $850 million New Ryan Field in October, the cost assuaged by christening the new stadium with a 34-13 win over Penn State in which they ran for over 400 yards.
Chiles, too, was in need of a revival. He was benched at Michigan State in 2025. And Jonathan Smith, the coach he followed from Corvallis, Oregon, to East Lansing, Michigan, was fired.
Statistically, this has already been the most successful season of Chiles’ career. He’s on pace for new career highs in completion percentage (71.3%) and yards per attempt (9.9). Chiles has also thrown 12 touchdowns to just one interception.
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“Football has just been fun this year,” Chiles said. “It starts with my team, it starts with my coaches, they’ve instilled this confidence in me and built me up to a point where I can just go out there and play free and play confident and trust the guy next to me and trust myself and my abilities.”
This is the most successful system Chiles has been a key part of. The Wildcats are one of 26 teams that average more than 200 rushing yards per game. Northwestern has scored 20-plus points in every game and more than 40 on three occasions, including a 42-14 win last time out against Rutgers. Chiles set a new career-high with 83 rushing yards in that game.
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Opposing defenses have yet to contain the Wildcats’ offense. Chiles has been the hammer in the red zone with a career-high nine rushing touchdowns. Running back Caleb Komolafe leads the team with 551 rushing yards. Joseph Himon II is second on the team in rushing and averages a ridiculous 9.8 yards per carry. Gavin Sawchuk rounds out the three-headed running back room with more than 200 yards on the ground.
Only eight teams run the ball at a higher rate than Northwestern (61.1%). Three of them are service academies.
“It’s not always gonna look pretty,” Chiles said. “We’re gonna play football how it’s meant to be played.”
Northwestern’s success running the ball has opened things up in the air for Chiles. His favorite target has been Griffin Wilde, who leads the team by a long shot with 39 receptions for 615 receiving yards.
Chiles said seven games in, it feels like he and his teammates have been running the Wing-T — which dates back to the 1950s — since they were little. Kelly’s pitch to Chiles was that it would be complicated for defenses but easy for them. So far, that has been the case.
“We like to say it’s a shiny object, and you hit ‘em with something else,” Chiles said. “It’s a lot of movement for somebody on the defense to see, but for us it’s the same stuff.”
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Ironically, the moment Northwestern acquitted itself on the national stage was in its only loss. The Wildcats played themselves well in a season-opening win against South Dakota State, an FCS powerhouse. They ran up the score on Colorado, a team hardly anyone knew what to make of. And then on a Friday night road game against Indiana, Northwestern gave the defending national champions hell.
The Wildcats trailed 12-0 at halftime, but they drew within a touchdown in the fourth quarter and made the Hoosiers sweat in a 29-23 loss. That was the only time Northwestern’s run game was stymied, but Chiles offset the team’s season-low 32 rushing yards with 293 through the air.
“The Indiana game showed us that we can really compete with anybody,” Chiles said. “The potential that we saw in that game really changed my perspective.”
Any rematch with the Hoosiers will have to wait until the Big Ten championship or College Football Playoff, both of which the Wildcats can realistically start to think about heading into the final month of the regular season.
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Northwestern’s remaining schedule is among the toughest in the country. The Wildcats travel to Oregon, where Kelly also coached once upon a time, on Saturday. They then return home to face Iowa, play at No. 2 Ohio State and Minnesota in back-to-back weeks and return home to host Illinois.
Two more losses down the stretch might be too many for Northwestern to make the field. But a 10-2 Wildcats team will have a resume the committee will appreciate. And the way they looked against Indiana, it seems they can hold their own against any opponent.
Chiles, though, isn’t letting himself look too far ahead just yet.
“One day, we’ll be able to turn around and look back like, dang, we did something big,” he said.
Whether or not the Wildcats realize their lofty goals is beside the point. Chiles, Kelly and the Wing-T have already done the impossible: They got people talking about Northwestern football.
