Michigan hires Kyle Whittingham as head coach on 5-year deal, per report
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Michigan and Kyle Whittingham agreed to a 5-year deal late Friday afternoon to make Whittingham the replacement for Sherrone Moore as Wolverines head coach.
The deal was reported by ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel and was expected to be formally announced later Friday.
Thamel had appeared on SportsCenter earlier Friday afternoon and reported that there was an “urgency” from Whittingham, the longtime head coach at Utah, to connect with his potentially new Michigan players before they play Texas in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve. It appears that the urgency Whittingham desired has come to fruition, with this reported 5-year deal now agreed to between the veteran coach and Michigan.
Whittingham and Utah had announced 2 weeks ago today that he would be stepping down as coach of the Utes after the team’s bowl game. The 66-year-old Whittingham had been the head coach at Utah for the past 21 seasons, compiling a 177-88 record in his one and only head coaching job — until Friday’s report of his agreement with Michigan to lead the Wolverines amid these times of turmoil in the aftermath of the Moore firing.
Michigan has been searching for its new head coach since the Dec. 10 firing of Moore created shockwaves through college football. It appears that Michigan has its man and it’s Whittingham, who would become the 22nd head coach in the proud history of Wolverines football.
Whittingham had a decorated run at Utah, being a 3-time conference Coach of the Year and winning 11 bowl games while leading the Utes to all of those victories over the past 2 decades-plus.
He was expected to coach Utah one last time in the Las Vegas Bowl against Nebraska on New Year’s Eve, but Thamel reported earlier Friday that the plan was “unlikely” at this point, with Whittingham’s negotiations with Michigan ongoing.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
