After a most difficult, disconcerting game for Kyle Whittingham on Saturday night, the kind of game, the kind of loss against rival BYU, that could send a coach to hurtle in one of two directions — either to double down and retrench and begin again or to pack it in and say enough is enough, I looked for clues in Whittingham’s remarks this week regarding his status moving forward.
He’s always said he would not coach into his later years, and those later years are coming fast, maybe have already arrived. The veteran mentor has been at the helm with the Utes for 20 years, and while he looks and acts energized and healthy, Whittingham is 64, turning 65 on the 21st of this month. I once joked with him that he had more than his fair share of rings around the trunk, and he didn’t lash back against that. Instead, he chuckled.
Thing about Whittingham is this: For as immersed and entrenched as he’s been in football through the majority of his years on this green-turfed Earth, as dedicated and absorbed and driven as he’s been, he’s also a blessed man who has a whole lot of other things about which to care and for which to live, among them a keen interest in all kinds of other subjects and activities. He’s highly intelligent and motivated to learn about some of the world’s wonders. But foremost among his passions is the most important one — his family. His wife, his kids, his grandchildren and his extended family.
Football may be a major player in his existence, but it is not his life.
With there having been much speculation coming into this season about his status, his imminent or eventual retirement, and with the naming of defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley as his imminent or eventual replacement, everyone’s looking for hints, any kind of signals, that his time has come. But for a coach who thinks not tipping his hand regarding which quarterback he’ll play right up until game time is some kind of advantage, even when it’s obvious, it’s likely Whittingham will play that same hand with his departure. Although, in that case, as far as recruiting goes, it might be to Utah’s advantage for recruits and transfers to be fully informed regarding who will be in charge moving ahead, including next season.
Either way, Whittingham having suffered through and endured Saturday’s loss to BYU, for curious minds a search for indications as far as which way the coach is leaning was mostly cloaked. Perhaps with the exception of one uttered line during his Monday news conference.
Whittingham was asked how he felt about his team, his players and their leadership and character after and through the adversity they’ve faced by way of a 1-5 record in the Big 12 and a 4-5 record overall.
The last part of his response included the aforementioned line:
“Love our guys. Love our players. Love coaching this team. It’s been one of the most frus … well, the most frustrating season of my career. … The year hasn’t turned out anything like we hoped it would, like we were expecting.”
The entirety of the rest of Whittingham’s comments were the same as they almost always are. Direct, straightforward, common sensical. The man’s articulate and measured in what he says, and he was all of that over the rest of his remarks. When he talked about the intense reactions of the night on Saturday, and the comments made by athletic director Mark Harlan, he mentioned feeling so much emotion, and that sometimes people say things in the moment that they wouldn’t ordinarily say, and at the end of that paragraph he added, “Including myself.”
That was in reference to him calling what happened — namely, a referee’s now infamous, but correct call — near the end of that game “ridiculous.”
As fierce as Whittingham can be, the years have brought to him a kind of resolve, almost a comfort, certainly a perspective that a lot of younger coaches don’t have, again, including himself when he was younger.
You can read what he said as a bit of exasperation … the most frustrating season of my career. That’s saying something since especially in his earlier tenure as head coach at Utah, he turned for a time into a cold blast of wind, attempting to get his program settled into what he wanted it to be. And … the year hasn’t turned out anything like we hoped it would, like we were expecting. Yeah, truer words have rarely been spoken. Darn near everybody, players, coaches, fans, media, all thought the Utes would dominate the Big 12 in their first run through it. Um … not so fast.
The question then becomes: Since it was expected for Utah to finish this season a winner, maybe a champion, a participant in the expanded 12-team college football playoff, giving Whittingham the prime opportunity to pronounce a fitting benediction on his career, would he be content to go out with substantially lesser results? Those results most definitely would not tarnish what he has achieved at Utah, what he’s done for Utah football.
But could he walk away on that note, singing a requiem instead of a sweet swan song?
Or will he be motivated to try to build the Utes back up for something better? With NIL being what it is, with the landscape of college football shifting, with the Utah offense being as sloppy and slack jawed as it’s been, with no clear-cut progression of quarterbacks in the program, with an infusion of boosted culture needed, does Whittingham need to hammer his way through all of that?
He can, if that’s what he wants. Is that what he wants?
His image is already carved on the mountain of great coaches in this state and beyond. He’s got more money than King Farouk and a residence in Maui with attendant fairways and greens calling his name. Most significantly, he’s got family and friends — and health and time to be with them.
This season may not have turned out anything like what he hoped it would, like he was expecting, but his career, that’s a whole different matter. He’s done what he’s done, and if there’s anything outside of huge satisfaction and fulfillment and glory tied to that, it would require a search with no clues, no hints — or sensible justification — to be found.
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