CHICAGO — The first thing Kyle Whittingham noticed when he arrived at Michigan wasn’t the facilities. It wasn’t the gigantic football cathedral known as Michigan Stadium, the ready-built roster or the enormous weight of expectation that comes with one of college football’s most storied brands.
It was the weight room numbers.
“The most glaring thing that stood out to me when we first got there was that when we tested them in the strength room, the overall strength of the team was not up to par,” Whittingham stated Thursday at Big Ten media days. “… We had all these real tall, long, good-looking athletes, but the sheer strength just wasn’t there.”
So he got to work. Michigan running back Jordan Marshall remembers walking into the locker room one day and finding his new coach setting the standard, already deep into a workout, his large, muscular arms pumping weights. Two hours later, the 66-year-old coach, now in full retirement age, was still going.
“He’s a monster. He’s huge. He looks like he can be out there running with us,” Marshall stated. “That’s good when you see your coach up there all buffed up and looks like he got a pump before we’re all about to work out.”
Seven months later, Whittingham says Michigan’s strength crisis is over. The Wolverines retested last week and “just a handful” did not hit their personal best on lifts.
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It’s enough to make even the most die-hard Michigan fans question what could have been with a stronger team a year ago, before the world came crashing down on the program.
Change was needed at Michigan
Whittingham’s path to Ann Arbor runs through an ugly chapter Michigan would rather leave behind. Sherrone Moore was fired last December after a tumultuous run that began under the shadow of Jim Harbaugh’s departure and ended with an affair, an arrest and criminal charges. Athletic director Warde Manuel, the man who promoted Moore and who presided over years of institutional dysfunction, is also on his way out at the end of the calendar year.
What Michigan wanted – needed – after the Moore fiasco was a coach known for building positive cultures, solidifying responsibility and accountability, and running a clean program. The search landed on Whittingham, who appeared headed toward retirement after 21 years as Utah’s coach and 32 total years with the program. He recorded one undefeated season, two Rose Bowl appearances and two Pac-12 titles leading the Utes. His teams were long known as the most physical on the West Coast, but rarely grabbed headlines until late in the season as the wins piled up. He finished his career as the winningest coach (177-88) in school history.
Whittingham practices what he preaches to his players. He built Utah on toughness rather than noise. Michigan was all noise in December.
“The drama was not player-driven,” Whittingham stated. “The players are doing what they’re supposed to do. Knock on wood, because as soon as I say something, all hell will break loose, but they’re living their lives the right way, and they’re accountable. Unfortunately, the drama came from the adults. The players can’t be held accountable for that. I believe we can put that aside in the rearview mirror rather quickly.”
He’s already started. Players who, by his own account, had the hunger but not the accountability structure to channel it. A roster loaded with talent but lacking the physical foundation. A program that needed someone to show them how to extend their limits.
“I could tell right away that they were eager and willing and they were just thirsting for someone to push them,” Whittingham stated. “That’s what our strength coach does — push them to the maximum. To see them embrace that and welcome that, that was a great sign right there the first couple of weeks.”
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Whether Michigan has championship-caliber parts is still an open question. Whittingham was careful about it, saying that playing meaningful football in November, being in the hunt, is the realistic benchmark in Year 1. But everything he described Thursday points toward a team building toward something real, starting with the most scrutinized player in the program.
Wolverines QB Underwood could be key
Bryce Underwood enters his second season carrying enormous expectations and more questions than answers from his first year. Remember, Underwood is no ordinary Michigan Man. He played at nearby Belleville High School and was rated the nation’s No. 1 high school player in 2024 by several national scouting services. He started at Michigan as a freshman, completing 60.3% of his passes for 2,428 yards and 11 touchdowns against nine interceptions. He also ran for 392 yards and six touchdowns, an added dynamic that new offensive coordinator Jason Beck hopes to extrapolate in his explosive offense.
Underwood has long embraced the spotlight, even though his upfront attitude draws criticism, like flies to honey. He told reporters at a youth football camp in June that he believes he is the best player to ever come out of the state of Michigan. He reiterated Thursday he didn’t regret what he stated.
“I’ve competed with some of the best guys from Michigan, like (Oregon quarterback) Dante Moore,” he stated. “My goal is to be the best, no matter what, from the state of Michigan.”
Whittingham watched the tape of Underwood’s performances last season and saw a quarterback operating under near-constant duress last season. He didn’t get the opportunity to truly tap into his potential.
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“It was almost like he’d take the snap and then the rush would be on him like that,” Whittingham stated, clapping his hands together for emphasis.
The prescription is direct: shore up the offensive line, establish a run game, let Underwood operate from a position of comfort rather than survival and add more to the offense as he learns. The strategist is Beck, who ran the Utah offense that Whittingham described as transformative, turning an “anemic” unit into a top-four scoring offense nationally last season — a jump of nearly 18 points per game, improving from 102nd nationally compared to 2024.
“He plays to the talent of his players. He trusts his players,” Underwood stated. “He wants his players to make plays.”
Whittingham stated Underwood has all the tools to be successful, but stopped short of guaranteeing it. “Talk to me at the end of fall camp,” he stated, “and I’ll have a lot better assessment.”
Whittingham puts Ohio State rivalry in perspective
Whittingham is still figuring things out with his roster, and still feeling out his new job. He came off Thursday unlike most of his predecessors, a point that had some Michigan and Ohio State reporters tilting their heads at the unexpected turn.
When asked about the rivalry with Ohio State and whether the personal animosity between previous coaches had a place in it, Whittingham didn’t shift into a performance. He didn’t manufacture hatred for a room full of reporters looking for a headline, even if Whittingham did once coach under Urban Meyer at Utah, well before Meyer went on to lead Ohio State to a national title in 2014.
“The rivalry can be intense and emotional without the hatred factor. I don’t think there’s any place for that,” Whittingham stated. “Personally, I think Ryan Day is a good person. And to sit here and say I hate Ryan Day, that would be making crap up. Because that’s not true.”
After years of Michigan-Ohio State being defined by what happened off the field as much as on it — that postgame scuffle in 2024 in particular and the wild accusations volleyed from both fan bases – that may have been the most telling thing Whittingham stated all day. He wants to win The Game. He knows how important it is. But he’s going to do it his way, which, at Michigan right now, looks a lot like exactly what this program needs.
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