Despite poor process, the Michigan Wolverines may have lucked their way into the right hire all along to replace Sherrone Moore
The Michigan Wolverines finally have their next head coach in former Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham
The Michigan Wolverines have finally found their next head coach. After a long and winding search that ventured closer to disaster than dandy, Michigan is planning on naming former Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham as their next head coach.
This hire is the result of a multi-week search that was brought about after the explosive Sherrone Moore saga unfolded.
Kyle Whittingham could be the right man for Michigan
Whittingham stepped down from his post at Utah just two days after Sherrone Moore was fired by Michigan after 21 seasons on the job. Defensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting Morgan Scalley is replacing Whittingham, who joked that he was now “entering the transfer portal”
Whittingham, 66, is 177-88 all-time at Utah with three conference championships with AFCA Coach fo the Year and Bear Bryant Award nods in 2008 after a 13-0 season. He won the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year award in 2019, and won Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
Additionally, Whittingham led the Utes to eight of their 11 10+ win seasons in school history, 17 of the school’s 27 bowl bids, and his 177 career wins are third among all active coaches and are 38th all-time. Bo Schembechler is the only Michigan coach in history who has eclipsed that figure.
The identity of team that Whittingham has cultivated at Utah is a perfect culture fit for the Wolverines, and fits seamlessly with the style of play Jim Harbaugh brought to the team. The Utes have always been physical, high-culture and high-motor teams that play elite defense and a dominant ground-and-pound offense.
Michigan is a program that will demand winning, successful coaches, and there aren’t many better than Whittingham. However, the process that the Wolverines took to get to this hire reeked of desperation.
Michigan was desperate to name anyone as head coach
Whittingham could very well turn out to be the correct hire that Michigan needed to make. However, as it stands right now, it looks more like he was the only hire that Michigan could make at this point. They simply had no other options left.
The interest in Kalen DeBoer fell apart when he led Alabama to a win over Oklahoma in the first round of the College Football Playoff last week. They quickly eliminated Washington’s Jedd Fisch early on in the search. Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz reportedly bombed his interviews and interest quickly waned. On top of that, Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, and Jesse Minter on the Los Angeles Chargers all withdrew from the search.
Michigan ran out of candidates interested in the job. If they wanted a head coach in place by the time the transfer portal opened up on January 2nd, they simply had no other choice but to hire Whittingham, which takes a little shine off of the hire.
In a vacuum, Whittingham is a very good football coach, and perhaps that’s all that will matter in the end. However, Michigan’s administration ran this search fairly poorly, and they ended up with a coach who will turn 67 next season and might not be the long-term option the Wolverines were hoping for.
If it works out, nobody will pay any mind. On the outside looking in, however, I can understand why Michigan fans have been more than a tad unhappy with the way it unfolded.
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