EAST LANSING — Jonathan Smith brought in one of his mentors, Chris Petersen, this summer to speak to his new Michigan State football team.

The former Boise State and Washington coach explained his "WAVE" philosophy for leadership to the Spartans — Work, Attention, Vibe and Enthusiasm. It was a message new MSU quarterback Aidan Chiles absorbed and adopted immediately.

“Somebody has to bring it in every day. That's really all you can do,” Chiles said Thursday. “A suggestion for anybody that wants to be a leader and wants to take that role is you gotta come in and have WAVE. You gotta come in and have those things, those traits, so that you can be leader you want to be.”

His teammates saw it and felt it throughout preseason camp, and they felt strongly enough about Chiles to name the 18-year-old Oregon State transfer as one of the Spartans’ five captains in their Sunday voting that Smith revealed to the team Monday during a team meeting.

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The vote was somewhat to the surprise of Chiles, who has yet to start a game and has just 91 collegiate snaps, all as a rotational backup last year with the Beavers.

“It just shows me that the team really believes in me as a leader and believes in my abilities to help them grow as a team,” he said after practice Thursday, eight days from MSU’s season opener against Florida Atlantic. “And also to help me grow as a person, as a player. So it just shows that I have the traits, and that the team also has the traits … and we can do this thing.”

Chiles joins Kirk Cousins and Payton Thorne as sophomore quarterbacks named a captain at MSU — though the other two were captains in their third year in the program (and Thorne was not officially and publicly given the tab until after the 2021 season).

This years captain vote is also rare, in that three of the five captains are in their first year with the Spartans — sixth-year senior center Tanner Miller followed Chiles and Smith from Oregon State, arriving in January along with fifth-year senior linebacker Jordan Turner. Redshirt junior running back Nate Carter is in his second season at MSU after transferring in from Connecticut before last season. The other captain, sixth-year senior defensive tackle Maverick Hansen, is the only one to have spent his entire career with the Spartans.

“It feels like we've been teammates for the years, because everyone is so tight,” Hansen said Thursday. “We talk to each other and we spend time (together) outside of football. We truly care about each other, and I truly value and appreciate all of our guys that came in and are willing to put the work in for the green and white.”

Improving his own leadership was an area Chiles talked about in April. Receivers coach Courtney Hawkins — the lone holdover assistant from Mel Tucker’s staff — said he sensed that growth after spring practices ended. Even when coaches were on the road recruiting throughout the summer, Hawkins said, Chiles was getting together with the wideouts to work on their timing and route-running, then bringing in defensive backs to get 7-on-7 work against each other.

Chiles’ all-encompassing approach, Hawkins said, has been on full display over the past month in practices as MSU prepares to open the season next Friday against FAU (7 p.m., Big Ten Network).

“Just his personality. He's a guy that that binds the entire team,” Hawkins said. “You'll see him over there on the defensive side, you'll see him on offensive side, he's with the special teams guys. That's the kind of dude you need on your team. And he's done a tremendous job of just helping to pull everything together, and it's been fun to watch. He has natural leadership skills. He's a QB, and it comes easy to him.”

A lot of it comes from the WAVE that Chiles hopes to ride into his first collegiate start Friday night.

“You got to be a guy that everybody wants to follow, everybody believes every word you say. And you gotta be a guy that comes in every day with energy. That's what I try to do,” he said. “Again, very surprising they chose me as a captain. I'm a young guy, I didn't think I was going to get that opportunity. But I did. And a lot of it is because I feel like I know everybody on the team. I talk to everybody on the team, I built a relationship with everybody on the team, I communicate well. And I'm able to just play my game with everybody.

“We all come together as one.”

The Spartans are coming off a tumultuous year in which Tucker coached two games before he was fired for off-field issues, then the bulk of the coaching staff was dismissed after the 4-8 season. Smith was hired a day after MSU’s blowout loss Nov. 24 to Penn State in Detroit.

Along with the change in staff came another roster overhaul. Chiles, Miller and Turner are among 24 first-year transfers brought in after 38 players left MSU either during the season, after Smith’s hiring and following spring practices. Including freshmen, the Spartans have 61 new players who were not part of the program a year ago.

“The only thing that we focus on is the now,” Hawkins said. “There's no conversation about the last (few) years — we can't change it, nothing we can do about it. But we can move forward with where we are now and learn from things in the past.

“The guys that were here, they're excited. They're happy with how things are now. They're genuinely happy hanging around this building, wanting to be in this building. There's not a black cloud over this building. It makes a difference.”

After taking off Tuesday and Wednesday, MSU returned to practice Thursday morning to begin preparing for their opener. When they take the field at Spartan Stadium, it will officially mark the beginning of Smith’s program and Chiles’ team.

“We get to play to somebody other than ourselves,” Chiles said. “It's been a long time coming. I got here in January —it's been about eight, nine months, and it's just exciting to finally play somebody else. I feel like we're ready. We can do a lot of things. We just have to put it all together.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football QB Aidan Chiles embracing chance to lead