David Braun makes a ‘horrible decision’ vs. Michigan State and Pat Fitzgerald — but Northwestern wins anyway

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — For a couple of minutes late in Saturday’s game at Spartan Stadium, it looked as if Northwestern coach David Braun had gifted his predecessor Pat Fitzgerald a win.

In a tie game with 3 minutes, 29 seconds to play, the Wildcats had fourth-and-8 at their 28-yard line. Braun thought about how Michigan State had been moving the football on offense and with its return game. He thought there was an “advantageous look” for Northwestern to try to keep the ball and go for the win.

Braun had a moment of hesitation, but he told himself, “Trust yourself and let it rip.”

And then he called a fake punt.

Northwestern tight end Alex Honig, a former quarterback, threw a pass toward running back Robby Preckel that was tipped by a Michigan State defender and fell incomplete. The Spartans got the ball in field-goal range with an easy opportunity to win.

“Obviously, in hindsight, it was a horrible decision,” Braun said. “And this team had my back.”

Two-and-a-half minutes later, Northwestern defensive lineman Brendan Flakes was the first to help deliver Braun from that mind-bending decision, leaping up in the middle of the line to block Michigan State kicker Liam Boyd’s 33-yard field-goal attempt.

Then quarterback Aidan Chiles and running back Caleb Komolafe came through, pushing the Wildcats 64 yards on eight plays in 58 seconds.

And finally kicker Jackson Kleather sealed it, making a 34-yard field goal with two seconds to play to lift No. 25 Northwestern to a 24-21 victory.

The wild swing of events gave the Wildcats (5-1, 2-1) their first Big Ten road victory this season and prevented Fitzgerald from getting his first conference victory as the coach at Michigan State (2-5, 0-4). It also saved Braun from having to agonize over his decision just a week after the Wildcats moved into the Associated Press rankings for the first time in his tenure.

“It showed just the composure and the maturity of this group, not riding too high of a high or too low of a low,” Braun said. “When we talk about expecting victory, when we talk about being built for this — to go on the road in the Big Ten and win on the road — you have to earn that daily, and we’ve challenged the group with that.

“But the types of scenarios that we worked today, whether it be an all-out block situation on our PAT/field-goal block or a two-minute scenario with no timeouts. Our guys have been in the furnace and practiced scenarios with that so many times. You could tell that they were ready for the moment.”

Northwestern had to move past some distracting storylines over the last week to pull off the victory. The Wildcats were facing Fitzgerald, a former Northwestern All-America linebacker and head coach for 17 seasons before he was fired in July 2023 amid a hazing scandal.

Fitzgerald spent several minutes pregame chatting with Northwestern coaches and staffers on the field, including a midfield meeting with Braun, whom he hired to be defensive coordinator in 2023. And he went around after the game shaking hands and hugging Northwestern players, some of whom he recruited. Braun, who rose to interim and then head coach after Fitzgerald’s departure, said it was “kind of strange” to be facing his old boss but said it’s “now the new norm.”

Fitzgerald tried to downplay the meeting in the buildup to Saturday, saying “the game is not about me,” and he reiterated that postgame.

“This game is about the players,” he said. “It was great to compete in a Big Ten game. I thought it was a heck of a football game. We just didn’t make the plays down the stretch that we needed to make.”

Meanwhile, Chiles, a senior who transferred to NU this offseason, returned to Michigan State, where he played the last two seasons. He was mostly straight-faced in the postgame news conference, but he said underneath that demeanor he was “a little too excited” to be talking with reporters. He was just trying hard to contain his emotions after pulling off the win against a crowd he said was chanting “F-you, Aidan Chiles.”

“I’m not going to lie, I was popping into the crowd a little bit,” Chiles said. “Because they was popping to me, so I let emotions get the best of me. But at the end of the day, I was just relieved that I came out here and I did what I was supposed to do and helped my team win.”

Chiles’ former team didn’t make it easy. The Wildcats, whom Braun noted “can get really tightly wound” when they’re amped up, managed just 110 total yards in the first half and went into halftime down 14-10.

But they responded when it mattered after Michigan State took a 21-13 lead on Alessio Milivojevic’s 53-yard touchdown pass to Chrishon McCray early in the fourth quarter.

The Wildcats went up-tempo on the next drive, and Chiles completed all five of his passes, including a 20-yarder to Komolafe and a 23-yarder to Honig. He also had an 11-yard carry and a 1-yard touchdown run. He then hit Honig with a two-point conversion pass to tie it 21-21.

For the game, Chiles completed 18 of 27 passes for 226 yards, rushed for 60 yards and was sacked five times for a loss of 35 yards.

“Aidan did a great job of settling in and just keeping his composure,” Braun said. “Guys respond to his belief, whether it be at halftime or on the sideline. In terms of this week, I was just really impressed. I challenged our coaching staff, our team, myself, Aidan that this wasn’t about anything else other than going down the road and finding a way to win a Big Ten football game.

“And I think Aidan has such unique maturity as the week went along, he could acknowledge when he could start to feel that emotion coming up, could acknowledge that this will be maybe a little different. But he’s got to continue to shift his focus to just playing one play at a time, and executing with this team.”

After a stop by a Northwestern defense playing without injured safety and leader Robert Fitzgerald, things got crazy.

Pat Fitzgerald said the Spartans were ready for the fake punt because of “formation variations” they saw on tape. Northwestern players said they tried to pump up the defense when the fake failed, and Flakes, who was not feeling well during the game, said he told himself he had to make a play on the field goal.

“I just had a feeling in my body I was going to get the play,” Flakes said. “It was like slow motion. As I put my hand up, I had full vision on the kicker and I was just floating with my right hand in the air. And it went right to my hand. And I was like, ‘Thank you, God.’”

Then Chiles took over again, completing a 21-yard pass to Komolafe and passes of 12 and 17 yards to Griffin Wilde. Komolafe used a 14-yard run to get an even better position for Kleather, who had made two previous field goals but also had one blocked.

“It was just never a doubt,” Chiles said. “No matter what happened, if they would have scored, they would have made the field goal, we were going to go down, and we would have taken that game to overtime or we would have won the game. Simple as that.

“But we were never in here to lose this game.”

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