Kyle Whittingham Could Finally Win A National Title At Michigan

Somewhat obscured in a college football offseason marred with misbehavior, one of the sport’s least controversial figures is poised to headline an intriguing story.

There’s a longstanding school of thought, particularly in a world as cutthroat as high-level sports, that one doesn’t succeed without making enemies along the way. Yet, few head coaches succeeded as consistently as Kyle Whittingham in his 20 years at the helm of the University of Utah, where he went 177-88 with six top-12 finishes and three conference titles across two different leagues.

And, as the wins piled up, so did the praise and respect shown for Whittingham across all arenas of college football — and even beyond his own sport. IndyCar driver Graham Rahal told reporters last month that he “would love to meet” the coach.

In his 31 years of evolving responsibilities as both an assistant and head coach at Utah, the most divisive thing about Whittingham may well have been his affinity for the band KISS.

All that is to say Whittingham’s hire at the University of Michigan was an easy choice for Wolverines athletic brass, looking for a steadying presence to clean the program’s recently sullied reputation.

Sherrone Moore’s firing after his December arrest marked the low point in a turbulent few years for Michigan. The high of its 2023 national championship comes with the stain of the many suspensions Jim Harbaugh faced before ultimately exiting for the NFL — with a 10-year NCAA-dated show-cause penalty in effect.

But Whittingham’s sterling reputation isn’t why his understandable yet unexpected arrival in Ann Arbor should be intriguing to those who have followed his coaching career. Righting the compliance ship has never been the most glamorous position at any time in college football history, and it feels like an almost antiquated notion in the post-COVID landscape with ever-loosening restrictions.

Rather, Whittingham captaining a blue-blood program with the resources to contend for national championships might allow one of the best coaches of the sport’s last quarter-century to head off into retirement with a well-deserved title.

Now, there are those of us who award Whittingham’s 2008 Utah Utes a symbolic national championship for closing out as the sole unbeaten in Div. I football. But in terms of true national titles, Whittingham may be the best coach of the 21st century, if not longer.

He knocked on the door once Utah was afforded the opportunities the 2008 Utes were denied by virtue of their conference affiliation. However, upon joining the Pac-12 in 2011 and becoming a perennial conference contender by 2014, something always seemed to trip up Utah.

In some ways, the Utes’ misfortune that prevented them for competing for the national title in otherwise standout seasons was the quintessential avatar for the Pac-12 during the four-team Playoff era.

The 2019 Utah team best reflects this. A Friday night loss at USC early in the season was the lone blemish in a regular season that the Utes otherwise dominated, and was the result of back-up Trojans quarterback Matt Fink completing some jaw-dropping bombs to Michael Pittman.

Utah would likely still have reached the 2019 season’s Playoff. But after storming back from down 20 points to Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship Game, CJ Verdell broke two long runs that combined for 21 yards more than the Utes allowed rushing opponents per game all season.

With the Playoff’s expansion to 12 teams, and Michigan well-positioned as a flagship program in what has been the best conference of the era, the pitfalls that befell Utah in recent years look like less of a concern for Whittingham at Michigan.

Further, Whittingham built Utah into a perennial contender in the Mountain West, Pac-12 and last year the Big 12 getting more from less in terms of recruiting rankings. Utah’s high-level development maximized rosters that were rarely among the more highly rated as far as star grades.

Inheriting the blue-chip talent at Michigan, most notably the buzzed-about quarterback Bryce Underwood, and combining it with the efficiency Whittingham’s staff got from Utah could see the Wolverines as immediate challengers in the top-heavy Big Ten. The pairing of Underwood with offensive coordinator Jason Beck specifically may prove pivotal in the Big Ten landscape.

Seeing Whittingham on a sideline in colors other than Utah’s bright red, black and white will take some adjustment. But once Michigan has a few weeks of experience, expect the Wolverines to resemble the high-level winning and well-respected style that Whittingham embodied for the last few decades in Salt Lake City.