Kyle Whittingham is Who Michigan Football Needs

Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a nice holiday and have a happy new year. I had a nice relaxing week off, but I'm back and I have some stuff I want to talk about this week. There was a bunch of stuff I read or heard about last week that I feel I need to tell you all my opinions on. And it wouldn't be me if I didn't start the week talking about Michigan football hiring Kyle Whittingham as their 22nd head coach.

This is a big deal. A few weeks back I wrote about the whole Sherrone Moore fallout and what I wanted Michigan football to do moving forward. I was, and still kind of am, all about starting over. This football program needs a reset. Even the guys involved with the team have said as much. I saw Biff Poggi's press conference early in the week and he pretty much said that they need a full reset verbatim. And he has been with the program since Jim Harbaugh was hired.

Jim Harbaugh had his ups and downs, but he did bring a national title back to Ann Arbor and I will be forever grateful. The four seasons after the COVID shortened 2020 season were an absolute joy to watch and made me as happy as I have been since becoming a fan over 40 years ago. But you could see the issues piling up and it was starting to look worse and worse everyday. Then the Sherrone Moore stuff came to light and it was as bad as it could get. I hope Moore is getting the help he desperately needs, but it was clear that he was not suited for the job. It was far too much for him and it all came crumbling down faster than any of us expected.

When Moore was let go, I was concerned and confused. The timing was bad. The situation was messed up beyond belief. The whole story has become a soap opera that seems to get juicier with each new story that comes out. Like I said before, Michigan needed a massive shift in focus and to bring in a coach that could facilitate such a move. I wanted Kalen DeBoer, but Alabama won their playoff game and that stopped any momentum that Michigan may have had in hiring him. I quickly moved on to Kenny Dillingham. After DeBoer was off the table I figured they should go with a young coach who has an offensive background. It seems they kicked the tires on Dillingham, but never offered and Arizona State gave him an extension, taking him off the board. At this point, even though I wanted a change, I thought they were going to give the job to Biff Poggi, and I talked myself into that hire. I thought he could keep the roster mostly intact, the players seemed to like him, he was the first person who said the program needed a massive overhaul and I like him. But he does not have the best rep as a head coach. I understand that Charlotte is a much different level of college football than Michigan, but those Charlotte teams that Poggi was the head coach for were very bad. They did not put a good product on the field. But I thought maybe he could just be the CEO of the Michigan football program, and hire the proper people to run the team for him. It seemed to be trending towards Poggi, but something must have happened during one of his many interviews that turned the people hiring off. I don't know what he said or did, but he was suddenly not even mentioned as an option. This was when I kind of panicked. At this point I thought they were going to hire Eli Drinkwitz. No disrespect to Drinkwitz, but he would have been an awful option. I then read that Jedd Fisch was considered a "gettable" option, and while he has an offensive background, he didn't feel like a much better option than Drinkwitz, and he is from the Harbaugh coaching tree.

Then Kyle Whittingham's name started to pop up more and more. I have always respected Whittingham. His teams at Utah were pretty much always competitive. He seemed to run a clean program. He seems to only really care about college football. He has always had good defenses, and in the 2020's, the Utah offense has been explosive from time to time. He seems quiet and calm and confident. I remember when Harbaugh was in his first year at Michigan they opened the season at Utah, and the Utes beat them in a close, hard fought battle. I was frustrated, as I always am when Michigan doesn't win a game, but I came away impressed by how Utah equaled Michigan's toughness. They didn't play scared, and that was impressive to see. And he has quietly won a ton of games, had Utah in playoff conversations, went undefeated in 2008 and won, I believe, the Rose Bowl that year. He made Utah a perennial top 25 team and a thorn in every opponent's side. I have also heard people say that Utah was the Pac 12 and Big 12's Michigan equivalent. So, as his name came up more and more, he did tell Utah that he was stepping away to pursue other options, so I started to get on board. He felt like a guy who could come in and change the culture in a short time and get this team back to what made it awesome. He likes to run the ball and play defense, which is great, but he has also shown that he can adapt to playing modern offense in current college football. He has hired younger coordinators who understand that you have to adjust and adapt to stay relevant in modern college football. He has shown a willingness to let his coaches coach and to not be a dictator of his program. At his introductory press conference he said and did all the right things, but it never felt phony or forced. He reminded me of a guy who has been coaching college football for 30 plus years and understands what it takes to win, which is exactly who Kyle Whittingham is. I have also read a bunch of people who have coached or are currently coaching college football, and they all have nothing but glowing compliments for Kyle Whittingham. It seems like he is liked by almost everyone in the college football world. And after that press conference, I'm all in.

Maybe it is just because of all the craziness currently with Michigan football, or me looking at this hire with rose colored glasses, but I'm moving ahead with cautious optimism. Whittingham seems like the right guy to turn this team around. I feel like he can retain some important pieces. I do expect some guys to hit the portal, but if he can keep the right guys, he should do fine in year one. I am on board and happy about this hire. Now I'm ready to see who he hires for his staff, if he keeps anyone and how they come out in the Citrus Bowl on Wednesday. I'm ready for the Kyle Whittingham era at Michigan, and I am happy that this wild coaching search seems to have turned out okay for Michigan. Always and forever, Go Blue. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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