CHICAGO – He strode onto the stage wide-eyed yet comfortable, a bit of a pinch-me moment for a college football coaching lifer. Even so, not much surprises Michigan football’s new head coach, and that’s exactly the way the school wants it.
Spend four decades coaching – a couple of them running an entire Power Four program – as Kyle Whittingham has, and you learn a few things, like how to redirect a question when a direct answer would cause unnecessary stress.
As it might have Thursday, July 30, inside the massive ballroom of the Chicago Hilton, when Whittingham was asked about Bryce Underwood’s statement that he was the best football player to come out of Michigan … ever.
“I think you want your quarterback to be confident,” he began without hesitation. “If that’s his belief and feel, that’s great. I have no problem with that. May be in his best interest maybe to not put that pressure on himself in that way.”
Notice how he didn’t say it wasn’t in his best interest not to put that pressure on his team in that way, or his school in that way, or his coach in that way. Whittingham absorbed the tension in the question and diffused it in less than 15 seconds. He sounded like a counselor, which is no accident, and again why U-M wanted the 66-year-old to help pick up the pieces of this proud – and sometimes too prideful – program.
He was hired to win, of course, like any coach at this level is. But he was also hired to bring stability, structure, a soothing voice and a reassuring tone – after several seasons with anything but in Ann Arbor – and he is no doubt providing those to his players and to the program’s donors, with whom he has met around the country this summer.
Next stop, New York.
“I mean, people want to get to know the new coach and who he is and what he’s about, and that’s my obligation and my job to do that,” Whittingham said. “It’s been very productive, I think, this offseason, getting around and getting with the donors and the alumni and let them see, you know, what we’re all about at Michigan now.”
The key word here is “now.” Whittingham wasn’t part of the scandal and impropriety that plagued the football department (and parts of the athletic department as a whole) the past several years. His players weren’t part of the problem, either.
It was, as he said, the “adults.”
Most of those are gone. Whittingham is here to sweep up, redouble the foundation and maybe redecorate, though the new digs should look a lot like the old ones in certain ways. The former Utah coach wants to run the ball – he wants his quarterback, Bryce Underwood, to run the ball – and he wants to build from the inside out.
He wants the team to get stronger, literally. It already has, he said Thursday, after seven months of refortified strength and conditioning work. As mentioned, not much surprises Whittingham, but the roster’s lack of relative old-school strength did.
Not that the previous regime left the cubboard bare. He was clear about that. Tactful, even, and he’d have no reason to exxagerate here because all that would do is place undue pressure on him.
His goal, by the way, is to play meaningful games in November. This November. Get through a season, add more depth, and truly start competing for championships next season. If it comes early, great.
His other goal?
“Put all that (other) stuff in the rearview mirror … Get back to the basics [of] playing football and being a student-athlete,” he said. “It will be refreshing, I believe, for the program to hopefully be in a situation where it’s all about football and recruiting and academics, and none of the extracurricular stuff.”
He hit the right notes, just as Michigan State’s new coach, Pat Fitzgerald, did the day before when he met with reporters in Chicago for the Big Ten football media days. In this way, both programs succeeded in hiring coaches who have – at least initially – calmed a couple of stressed and slightly wounded fanbases.
Each will have to win to stay. And each arrives with different expectations. Both understand the power of their words and early messaging.
Fitzgerald leaned into the rivalry with U-M on Wednesday, Whittingham did so with Ohio State and Michigan State on Thursday. But like the veteran he is, he stopped short of using the word hate.
A harsh word, he said, and even in rivalries like these, an unnecessary word. As he mentioned, no one will want to beat the Buckeyes more than he will when late November rolls around. That should be enough. Besides, there is training camp first, and the season opener, and a formidable schedule and lots to learn … for him, for his players, for the school as it tries to slowly change its perception.
Whittingham took a small step toward that here in the Windy City. He was engaging and relaxed and real. He knows the job. He also knows what will ultimately determine his legacy in Ann Arbor.
That before he can win, he has to help stitch this program back together. He broke out a little thread Thursday, one question at a time.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football’s new coach is an adult. That’s a start
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
