ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Per ESPN, Michigan has hired longtime Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham to replace Sherrone Moore as the leader of its football program.
The Wolverines were blindsided earlier this month when details of an alleged inappropriate relationship between Moore and a staffer were confirmed, leading to his firing and eventual arrest.
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In the weeks since, a flurry of names have been linked to the Michigan coaching job, but the timing of the search made the situation much more complex.
So for Michigan to get a coach as established and well-respected as Whittingham has to be considered a win, although there are some obvious concerns (more on that below).
The transfer portal officially opens at the beginning of January, and some of the reported targets are coaching in College Football Playoff games or the final weeks of the NFL regular season.
So making a hire as fast as possible was a priority to salvage the 2026 season.
Michigan’s new coach
Whittingham, 66, was the second-longest tenured head coach in college football, with 21 seasons under his belt at Utah. He trailed only Kirk Ferentz, who has been at Iowa for 27 years.
During his 21 years at Utah, Whittingham saw the school go from the Mountain West, to the Pac-12, to the Big 12.
Whittingham won the Mountain West once in six seasons, the Pac-12 twice in 13 seasons, and did not win the Big Ten either of the past two seasons.
The Utes went 177-88 overall. He beat Michigan in back-to-back seasons in 2014 and 2015 -- first against Brady Hoke in Ann Arbor, and then at home in the very first game of the Jim Harbaugh era.
Whittingham is likely a short-term solution for Michigan, since he’s one of the older head coaches in the game. But his style fits the traditional Michigan mantra of tough defense and an offense that runs the football.
Whittingham doesn’t have any ties to the Midwest. He went to high school in Utah and attended BYU. He coached at BYU, Eastern Utah, and Idaho State before getting his first head coaching job at Utah.
In today’s College Football Playoff era, Michigan likely needs to go 10-2 in the regular season to get in. Whittingham has twice finished a season with only two losses since Utah because a power conference team -- 11-2 in 2019 and 10-2 this year.
Looking ahead
Michigan is coming off a decent season, going 9-3 with losses in its three most prominent regular-season games.
Michigan’s best win came at home against a 9-4 Washington team, and the Wolverines lost to their only three ranked opponents (No. 2 Ohio State, No. 8 Oklahoma, and No. 16 USC).
In the two seasons since winning the national championship, Michigan went 7-5 and 9-3 during the regular season, though it did beat Ohio State in Columbus in 2024.
Next season will be all about getting the Wolverines back into the playoff -- no easy task with Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Penn State, and Michigan State all on the schedule.
Attention now turns to whether Michigan can keep its current roster and commits intact. That begins with true freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood, true freshman wide receiver Andrew Marsh, a slew of young defensive contributors, and the No. 11-ranked recruiting class in the nation.