Josh is the sports director at KSL and beat writer covering University of Utah athletics — primarily football, men’s and women's basketball and gymnastics. He is also an Associated Press Top 25 voter for college football.
SALT LAKE CITY — Michigan called and Kyle Whittingham answered.A week after Whittingham said he'd listen to coaching offers and declared himself in the transfer portal, the long-time coach has accepted the head coaching job at Michigan, according to several national reports.
The offer is reportedly a five-year deal.Several reports linked Whittingham to the Michigan job early Friday, saying he was the primary target of the university. By the afternoon, it was reported Whittingham accepted the deal. Michigan has yet to make the news official as it travels to its bowl game.Long believed Whittingham would retire after a 21-year head coaching tenure at Utah, the all-time winningest coach for the Utes instead announced he would "step down" as the university moved to make defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley the program's new coach.But Whittingham's finish at Utah was far from a retirement announcement as he became a "free agent" amid one of the most chaotic coaching carousels in recent history, including one that left Michigan looking for a head coach after Sherrone Moore was fired for cause a couple weeks ago for an improper relationship."Somebody once told me that every year that goes by you're a coach, 10% of the fan base starts to hate you," Whittingham joked last week. "So after 20 years, they all, plus their kids and grandkids, probably hate me. So anyway, it was a good run. It was a good run. I'll say it one more time, I didn't want to be that hanger on that just kept — people just got sick of."Whittingham had long declared that he wanted to set up Utah for success after him, even saying last week that Utah was "in a good spot." He was also a major proponent of Scalley being named the head coach in-waiting prior to what was to be his retirement from the university."We've got good coaches, coach Scalley will come in and do a great job, got good players, so now is the time," he said.But as Utah traveled to Las Vegas for its bowl game Friday afternoon, several reports said Whittingham was likely to skip the Utes' bowl game to join Michigan as it takes on Texas in the Citrus Bowl, making Scalley the head coach for the Las Vegas Bowl.As such, Whittingham will have already coached his last game at Utah after it was expected the Las Vegas Bowl would be his final game for the long-time coach.More pressing, though, is that offensive coordinator Jason Beck is viewed as Whittingham's top target to
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