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Sports Illustrated

Sport

Bryan Fischer

Grading Kyle Whittingham to Michigan: Veteran, No-Nonsense Coach Perfect Fit

Kyle Whittingham Michigan (Organization) Wolverines Sherrone Moore Mich Utah (Organization) Football Morgan Scalley SI Utes

In college football, the storybook ending rarely transpires.

Be it a player, an administrator or a coach, the ideal career path one has in the back of their mind upon arriving on campus often becomes little more than a forgotten thought lost to time. All too often, the cold realities of the business warp the path of advancement in this sport.

Kyle Whittingham is an excellent example of this. At one point, he could have been in charge of his alma mater, BYU, a perfectly reasonable assumption for the former linebacker given how the timing lined up nearly two decades ago and the mutual interest in it happening. Instead however, he took the top job at rival Utah, where he was responsible for more wins in the program’s history as an assistant and head coach (252 in his 379 total games) than any other person.

He is, without a doubt, a Hall of Famer and would have ideally won a Rose Bowl a few seasons ago with the Utes, stepped aside for the now-head coach of the team, Morgan Scalley, and been allowed to ski or bike to his heart’s content every day before spending his fall Saturdays waving to adoring fans from a suite at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

That is not going to be the case, however. Instead, Whittingham will be writing a different chapter to follow up his incredible career at Utah by trading in his trademark black and red for the biggest of Go Blues possible by becoming Michigan’s head coach. It’s a scenario nobody had anywhere close to their radar just three weeks ago, but is indeed happening just as the calendar turns to 2026.

And despite this being far from how most Utes fans or die-hard Wolverines supporters would have drawn things up in a vacuum, it’s the kind of thing that could—and likely should—work out for all involved.

Rarely can one script things according to an ideal scenario. But in this case, Michigan gets the perfect scandal-free coach for the cleanup job who fits the ethos of what the program wants to be, and Utah can move on with a new phase in the team’s history. It’s not often that things work out in this manner, but in both Salt Lake City and Ann Arbor, Mich., it looks that way.

What it means for Michigan

In most coaching cycles, the Michigan job is one that is driving the bus. It’s the opening which is getting raises for scores of coaches tangentially connected to the search and is coveted by everybody who isn’t entrenched at a Big Ten or SEC powerhouse which happens to be their alma mater. The school has recently won a national title, competes in a Power 2 conference and has more than enough money to give the head coach everything he would want or need.

Alas, that is not the position the Wolverines found themselves in after the shocking revelations about Sherrone Moore came to light. They suddenly had to look for a new head coach when few would have pegged them to do so just a month ago. Now that normally wouldn’t have been an issue had it happened in late November instead of late December, but the carousel has already spun a couple of rounds already. Then you layer on the lack of a permanent school president, an active board of regents interested in athletics and an ongoing investigation which has put the Sword of Damocles above the athletic director’s head, and one of the most attractive jobs in the country looked much more like it was entering some hazy interim status instead of being one coaches flocked to.

In hiring Whittingham though, Michigan has made a hire that addresses much of the messiness from the last few weeks, can win enough to remain a playoff threat in the Big Ten and potentially lays the groundwork for becoming the destination job again. This is both a sensible short- and long-term move, a veteran head coach whose ceiling is helping the team win a first-round playoff game at home or potentially a quarterfinal, and who should be able to clean up any residual scandal issues with his no-nonsense approach to bide time for the administration to get its house in order.

Mostly though, the Wolverines just upgraded significantly from a head coach who looked in over his head far before this month to one who has an incredible track record who can give the program stability it really hasn’t had since Lloyd Carr was in charge.

What it means for Kyle Whittingham

Now we don’t have to wonder.

For years, as Whittingham was winning Pac-12 titles or churning out double-digit win seasons at a place without the resources of a blueblood, there was always a bit of a wonder over just what he would be capable of doing at a bigger, well-known program. Some notable names would come sniffing or he would be linked to those kinds of jobs, such as USC a few times, but he always stayed in Salt Lake City.

Part of that was out of loyalty and part was the comfort factor in knowing that someday there would be a Whittingham statue outside of the football stadium.

That can still be the case one day at Utah, but now Whittingham puts a bow on his coaching career in ways few expected him to when he twice uneasily acquiesced to the administration naming Scalley as the Utes’ head-coach-in-waiting. The way things played out allows him to be diplomatic about this exit from the place he guided through multiple conference transitions, all the while knowing that he’s actually the one moving onward and upward in a move that should have come ages ago.

Instead of having to nibble around in the background of the sport with a job far from what his résumé would demand—as it looked like was the case just a week ago—Whittingham now gets to take over a blueblood and see what he can do. College football has changed plenty over the years and it’s no longer perfectly conducive to how he wants to coach, but this is just the energizing type of move that can bring out the best in the veteran head coach while also allowing for many of those “What if?” questions to dissipate when he finally hangs up the whistle.

Final Grade: A

Sometimes it’s hard to fail upward in finding a coach at a place like the Big House, but that sure looks like what has happened at Michigan. In Whittingham, the Wolverines secured a coach who embraces how the fan base likes to play football, will be able to significantly revamp the culture at Schembechler Hall for the better and will have more resources than he’s ever had to win games. It may not be a 15- or 20-year move for the program, but it’s the perfect one right now.