Everything Michigan HC Kyle Whittingham said on The Blueprint podcast with Jake Butt and Devin Gardner

On the moment he received the job offer from Michigan

Yeah, my agent got the phone call as far as the first contact, and there was a conversation there. Agent approached me and said, hey, Michigan, been talking to Michigan. What do you think? I said, are you kidding me? I had just recently stepped down at Utah. It had only been literally days, and in my mind I had already made the decision that, hey, if I get a great opportunity, I’d be all in and take it and be excited about continuing, but it would have to be the right one, and you could really count on one hand the number of schools in that field. When he called, my agent called and said, hey, Michigan, there’s interest. Then it was full steam ahead at that point.

On slowing down the talks with Michigan to preserve contract leverage

Pretty much. Pretty much. I mean, this place is special. I’ve, you know, ironically enough, I’ve been following Michigan football since I was like seven or eight years old. The winged helmets got me from the get-go, and I used to watch Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes go at it in those great battles, and have always had a really strong interest in Michigan football through the years.

On what has stood out to him about Michigan after his first spring

I would say no, no surprises at all. Like I said, I’ve been very tuned into the program for a lot of years. Michigan football, you think of physicality and running the football, defending the run, just what the essence of football is. And that’s what Michigan football embodies. That’s in my DNA. That’s how I’m doing it.

On the resources with NIL at Michigan changing his perception of the college football landscape

Well, it’s all about resources. Before it was resources and your facilities and stadiums and all that type of stuff. Now it’s really NIL resources. That’s where the emphasis is and what it takes to win in college football in this day and age, in this era. Great resources in the NIL area space, outstanding players, which ties right into how much NIL you have, and then a coaching staff that’s competent. And so, again, it’s in that order of importance, and there’s going to be several teams in this ’27 recruiting cycle that are $50 million-plus rosters.

So you either got to keep up and embrace that or embrace irrelevance because it’s not changing, at least right away. I think it’s gotta be completely overhauled at some point in the not-too-distant future. And I think we’re already starting to see that with some of the things that are coming down the road. I think five years of eligibility is about to be passed. The transfer portal might be a thing of the past, and you might go back to where you have one free transfer where you can play immediately, but after that, you have to sit. So I think they’re trying to rein that in. But the biggest thing that needs to be reined in and has not been reined in, but has some parameters and guardrails put on it, is NIL. Essentially, a salary cap. I mean, that’s the direction we’ve got to head.

On whether there’s an age limit on the fifth year if the new rule passes

No, in fact, if it gets enacted and put in place this fall, which I’ve talked to some really important people who are right at the forefront of this. And they said, there’s a good chance of that. It’ll just be for the guys that still have eligibility left. So the guys that just finished maybe four years like you that just finished this past 2025 season, it doesn’t affect them at all. It’s all moving forward.

On how to balance culture and NIL pay disparities

Yeah. Well, on the bottom line, when all said and done, you got to play the guy that give you the best chance to win. I mean, that’s what we’re in this profession to do, to win. There’s no secret about that. And I guess you just have to have confidence to a certain point in your ability to evaluate who you pay. You paid that guy for a reason and drafted him in that spot for a reason because the ceiling that he might have.

And so you better exhaust every single possible way to get that guy better and make sure that he, or at least try to ensure that he succeeds. But if it just isn’t working, then at times, you’ve got to make that tough decision. Tom Brady, for example, sixth-round draft choice, and then he ends up being the best quarterback, and so you, at some point, the cream always rises to the top at some point, but hopefully you’re right a lot more often than you’re wrong. As far as how you allocate your funds and that type of thing. But the bottom line, again, you want to win. It’s all about winning games, and whoever gives you that best opportunity is who you get to go with.

On how he formed his DNA as a head coach

Well, just that my father, he was a coach. Well, first of all, he played in the NFL for nine years or so. I grew up in those Dallas Cowboys locker rooms with Roger Staubach and Bob Hayes and Bob Lilly, guys you probably have never heard of. The greats of the game, Hall of Fame guys. He was with five different teams in nine years. He was an original Saint, got drafted in the expansion draft with the Saints back in 67. So I had a ton of football in my background to begin with, right from the onset. And then when he finished playing, he jumped right into coaching. And so it continued.

His first job was at Alhambra High School in Southern California, where he took a team that was supposed to win like two games and brought them to the playoffs. And the next thing you know, Lavelle Edwards at BYU was calling him to come up and coach there. So we packed up the family from Southern Cal and moved up to Provo, Utah. He spent 10 years on that staff and then the Los Angeles Rams called. So he goes to the NFL, and he’s with John Robinson and that crew for 10 years. Then he goes back to college for a few years and back to the NFL. So anyway, but the point is I was around football since I can remember. It was about midway through my college career that I thought, hey, I’d like to become a coach. I mean, that would be something that’d be pretty cool. It’s actually towards the end of my college career. I just jumped right in after I finished playing a couple of years of pro ball. I played in the USFL. It’s not the UFL, but it originally was the USFL, and Donald Trump had his team out in New Jersey. I was on the Denver Gold and had a great time. So once that was over with, I jumped right back into — the plan was being a graduate assistant at BYU for a couple of years. And then got hired at Idaho State University, which is my first job, Pocatello, Idaho, spent seven years there. Was able to hook on at the University of Utah, and the rest is history. I was almost there 32 years. So I’m very fortunate, very blessed in my career.

On what his why is in coaching

Just to be able to watch these young men develop coming to your program, maybe with not a lot of direction, maybe with not a lot of discipline, and that’s not a knock on high school coaches or anything. It’s just they’re young kids, and still trying to find their way, and to see them, four, three, four, five years later, leave with a degree in hand, ready to be a great husband and a great father, that’s really what it’s all about. And knowing that football works out for them at the next level. Great. But if not, they got that degree, and they got a future, and just helping them.

You’d be amazed how many players that we’ve had through the years that are not only the first college graduates in their families, but the first ones to attend college. I mean, just the opportunity to even go to college, that’s really rewarding to see that. And then you talk about the sacrifice and it’s really more of a sacrifice for your wife than it is for you. She’s the one that is essentially a single mother for half the year or three quarters of the year. And you better have a very strong wife. Coach’s wives come in two categories. First category is the awesome ones, the ones that get it, the ones that can handle the sacrifice, are independent and strong, and can work through it. The second category is ex, and that’s about it. There’s no one between a coach in the coaching world as far as wives.

On how much weight he puts into the spring game vs. the 14 practices he saw

Well, it’s all important, but the 14 practices are far more valuable as far as when you’re in our situation that we were in, we had a lot of things that we needed to accomplish this spring. Get two completely new schemes installed on both sides of the ball. In fact, special teams as well. Kerry Coombs is doing a fantastic job for us with special teams.

Got hired late in the season and really didn’t have a chance to install all of his stuff. So the spring ball, we had a chance to put in schemes on both sides of the ball and special teams. Needed to find out who our playmakers were, needed to make every single player in the program (sound) fundamentally and technique-wise. That’s another big objective. So in the spring game, it was more of just finding out as a game-like situation as we could create. Who’s going to step up and make a play? So it had value, but far more intensity and just learning in the first 14.

On next steps for Bryce Underwood and areas of growth for fall camp

Well, first of all, Bryce was thrown into a pretty tough situation last fall. True freshman, 18 years old, starting quarterback at a P4 program at Michigan. You’re under the spotlight. Also, didn’t have a dedicated quarterback coach last year, from what I was told. So he was a little rough around the edges, still is a little bit, but we had talked about spring ball, but long before that, January, February, in the film room, talking him through mechanics, footwork, and read progressions, and all that continued through spring. He has made progress, still got a long ways to go, but he’s on the right path.

It’d be very important this summer that he continues to work. And one thing about Bryce, he’s got a great work ethic, and there’s no worry about him putting in the time. He’s going to put in all the time he needs. And he’s completely dedicated to his craft. We’re still finding out — we’ve got a really good, much better, clearer picture through spring ball, what he does well, what suits him, what aspects of the offense are strong suits, and we’ll start to gravitate towards that as we move closer to the season. We exposed him to everything this spring, but again, we got to know him a lot better, and we’ll continue to move and evolve the offense in a direction that really suits what he does best.

On Savion Hiter’s future at Michigan

Well, it’s way up there. I can tell you that he’s going to be a contributing force this year without a doubt. Jordan Marshall’s RB1, make no mistake, coming out of spring ball. He’s a terrific player, a terrific leader. Can’t say enough good things about him. The way Savion handled himself and just went about his business this spring was very impressive. He’s a true professional. He was not a typical freshman who might be a little emotional or volatile. He’s mature beyond his years.

Just physically, it’s incredible. He’s about six feet, 220 pounds, not an ounce of fat on the kid. A great contact balance, will pick up blitzes, has really good hands out of the backfield, explosive runner, can make you miss. His future is very, very bright. And like I said, his future starts now. He’ll be getting carries from game one.