Aidan Chiles scored a touchdown running and another passing, while Charles Brantley set a school record with a 100-yard interception return as Michigan State defeated Prairie View A&M 40-0 on Saturday.
This is the first time since 2021 that the Spartans (3-0, 1-0 Big Ten) have started the season with three consecutive wins. Their most recent shutout was a 52-0 win over Akron in 2022. Michigan State has never lost to an FCS team, with a record of 9-0 and a combined score of 372-81 against them.
“There’s still room to improve, but we put up points today,” said Chiles, who completed 12 of 19 passes for 173 yards. “I can’t complain about it. I feel like offensively, we had a lot of self-inflicted wounds, but we can move the ball.”
Michigan State scored on three of their first four drives. Chiles started the scoring with a 6-yard touchdown run and then threw a 17-yard pass to Aziah Johnson to make it 14-0 in the first quarter. Nathan Carter’s 60-yard touchdown run and Brantley’s interception return of Cameron Peters’ pass in the second quarter increased the lead to 27-0.
Earlier, Brantley had a 35-yard interception return for a touchdown, but it was negated by a roughing the passer penalty.
“I was just more so responding off the penalty that we had,” Brantley said about his long return. “I was like, OK, we got a pick six. They call the flag. OK, we’ve got to respond now. Then they drove us down (the field). Then they try to run a fake play. I saw it, read it and they threw it up and I caught it.”
In the second half, the Spartans, playing against an HBCU opponent for the first time, added field goals of 33 and 23 yards by Jonathan Kim and a 1-yard touchdown run by backup quarterback Tommy Schuster to finish the scoring.
The Panthers’ (0-1 SWAC, 1-2) best chance to score came when they advanced to the Spartans’ 9-yard line midway through the second quarter, but were pushed back 11 yards and Guillermo Garcia Rodriguez’s 37-yard field goal attempt missed wide right.
