The Sherrone Moore Saga & How Kyle Whittingham Ended Up at Michigan

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. Saturday, May 2nd, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas. At our 2026 iHeart Country Festival presented by Capital One. See Kane Brown, Parker McCollum, Riley Green, Shabuzi, Dylan Scott, Russell Dickerson, Gretchen Wilson, Chase Matthew, Lauren Alaina. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com. Welcome to the Solid Verbal. The Solid Verbal. Come after me! I'm a man! I'm 40! I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Eat a steak. It's that woo-woo! And now, down and tight. Dan Rubenstein, welcome back, my good friend. And we've got a bit of a special edition on today's podcast episode that I am very excited about. How are you? I'm good. I'm very good. I'm very excited for this specific concept because this is one of the weirder turn of events that hit number of schools. This this sort of coaching carousel season. So pumped about this episode. And, you know, it's a weird time of the college football calendar because technically, I think this week is officially the regular signing day. even though the regular signing day happened in December, as far as like what the reality of college football is in 2026. You know, this is what pitchers and catchers reporting season, not really college football spring practice season. Or, you know, I'm sure there'll be more coaching movement after this signing day. You know, Illinois' defensive coordinator, I think, was hired by Notre Dame to be their new DBs coach. So there's going to be stuff like that. but this is when I I think we at least start reflecting on the sort of flurry of news of the past couple of months and figure out how it happened and what it means moving forward so I don't know secretly this is a very fun time for me yeah after the postseason it's postmortem season yeah it's true which is kind of what we're doing here right now thank you to one and all for stopping on by downloading listening helping support the team of course hit follow hit subscribe wherever it is you get your shows we love to have you with us all throughout the offseason. Now, two episodes per week. You get a third bonus episode. You also get all these without the ads. Yeah. A bunch of other fun stuff. If you head on out to verballers.com and sign up as a certified or premium verballer, but that is not required. Of course, on today's episode, we tease this out a little bit. You and I are both very intrigued by the dynamics surrounding Kyle Whittingham. Yes. How he ended up at Michigan, why he stepped away from utah there's that whole side of it in addition there is the added layer of what went down at michigan not really short on controversy there that was sort of the story of the early to middle part of december especially layered on top of what was already a very very active coaching carousel so what we're doing today is covering that from both sides first we're going to have Dan Wetzel, our friend Dan Wetzel, we haven't had on in forever, right? From ESPN to talk through what transpired, what it was like to cover the whole Sharon Moore angle of him being dismissed from Michigan and everything that ensued thereafter. And then after we talked to Dan, we're going to bring on Sean O'Connell from ESPN 700, the home of the Utes to talk through what exactly were the circumstances that led to Kyle Whittingham walking away from the job at Utah, and walking into the opening with the Michigan Wolverines. A fascinating story to cover from a bunch of different angles. This is the time of year where we get to cover it from both. So interested to find out what both men have to say. Yeah, look, the term I would use would be unexpected on both sides of this, right? The unexpected stepping down of Kyle Whittingham and the unexpected circumstances of everything that went down with Sharon Moore at Michigan. And those two stories sort of coming together into one. And I was trying to think about this going into the show where we would have a longtime head coach who had become synonymous with the program in the way that Kyle Whittingham was with Utah leaving after a ton of time and immediately are leaving for a new job. The one I came up with was Mike Riley at Oregon State, where you're just like, oh, he's going to be there forever. Right. He's Mr. Oregon State and leaves for the Nebraska job. it doesn't work out but obviously there was something about leaving in the that nebraska job specifically that was like oh that would be an interesting fit and obviously that had the same sort of conversational circumstance of like oh okay the previous guy in bo polino bo polino bo polini bo polino is like the uh the the baseball stars version yeah where they just invent the names where Bo Pelini is just like running hot, right? And has the temper and, you know, is rubbing people the wrong way behind the scenes. You're like, let's hire the exact opposite. And I guess you kind of get a little bit of that here where I don't think Michigan was out to find the coach with the squeakiest, cleanest reputation, but they seem to have. And so, yeah, this is, it's a unique circumstance in the sport of Mr. Whatever, you know, Mr. Whoever actually leaving out of, you know, seemingly nowhere and taking another high profile job. Like Brian Kelly wasn't Mr. Notre Dame. He was sort of well-traveled and everything like that when he took LSU. Lincoln Riley was not Mr. Oklahoma. He had been other places and played other places. Like, so I don't know. This one's especially fascinating to me. And I'm interested from a different angle, which, as I said to you before we hit go here, there's a little bit of Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien. Totally. With the way that Whittingham walked away from or just the way that his reign as Utah coach ended because it was rumored that this guy is going to walk away. There have been plans drawn up to make the move to Morgan Scali. By all accounts, sounds like maybe there was a change of heart on behalf of Whittingham, but they had already been too far down the path. That is what gave him a license to go and take another job. Meanwhile, they make the move to Morgan Scali. So fascinating stuff. We've got two guys on who can help us dissect all of it. Excited to find out what we learned. Definitely. All right. So our guest today was last on this show. I went back and checked June the 1st, 2016, talking about the dismissal of Art Bryles from Baylor back in the day. So it's been a minute. But Dan Wetzel, I promise we are not trying to typecast you here as the character who comes on to talk controversial coaches. But nonetheless, here we are. I must have done a horrible job. I know. I mean, I got banished longer than than Art Bryles, I think. That's true. He's made comebacks to the sport briefly more often than you've made comebacks to the show. Right. I got suspended from this pod for 10 years, almost. Show cause. Did I have a show cause? What happened? we are thrilled to have you back you are now of course with ESPN ESPN.com uh welcome back how's everything how you been everything's great everything's great ready for the winter to warm up yeah other than that everything's great I am curious from your perspective because we brought you on to talk about the Michigan thing the Sharon thing the topic situation situation I am just curious as a reporter because you were doing some of, I thought, the most important reporting on the story. You were front stage center talking about everything that was going on in the moment. People were hanging on every word that you posted out on social media or ESPN.com or anywhere. What is that pressure like as a reporter, knowing that whatever you say about this story is inevitably going to kick off some kind of firestorm? So I don't I don't feel it that way. It was more that when you have a story, so, you know, if you look back on it now, we had a guy get fired. You had the extracurricular activities. I don't know. You had an affair. You had a labor situation. So we're already right there. We're talking about Sheryl Moore has a family, a wife, three people. So anything you say there, you have to be fair in this job. You want to be correct, but you also want to be fair. And so you have all of those dynamics. You have a staff member and their family. We don't know the whole extent of exactly how this relationship worked. So that could be a victim itself. So you have all of that. Then you had what was a either potential when we got into the legal stuff. So all of this is happening very quickly. You had this is a stock. You know, he's charged with stalking with home invasion. Right. There was talk. There's a knife involved that turns out to be a butter knife. But still, like there's a terrorist kind of thing. Then there's potential harming, self-harm, mental health. Like there is a lot of stuff that even if you report what you're hearing or the facts and you're trying to determine as best you can, the facts that somebody else is concluding is a fact, not just what someone said they heard. But is there a police document? Is there a, you know, a responding officer who is saying this? Or is it like two officers later in the dynamics of all of those things are so sensitive that that was the that was the pressure with the story? Because if you are flippant with that or you are wrong with that or you are ahead of that, there is widespread, you know, damage, whatever it is. It's more than just Jerome Moore got fired because he didn't win enough games, right? Or when you cover a coaching search, like I think I actually said this somewhere else. Like if you just sit there and say, hey, Michigan is focused on, as Pete Damo and I did later, you know, focused on hiring Kyle Whittingham. Right now, we want to make sure we're right about that. And we were very careful about that. And it was correct. But if you're wrong, nobody's hurt. Even Kyle Whittingham is probably like, yeah, cool, man. No one's no one's adversely affected. But when you're in all those other things and it's all happening quickly, there's a lot. And you can you can shape public perception on things that are going to be very significant to a lot of people. And so you just really wanted to be as accurate as possible and understanding that the people investigating it wouldn't know all the issues. That's the other part. Like, it's not what exactly happened, what didn't happen. You know, so that's still getting that'll get hashed out in court. So that was the trickiest part. How long was everything in the works? If you are to read various reporting and even just, I'll call this non-reporting, right? There's conversations, there's anecdotes that this was a known thing behind the scenes. And obviously, you have to meet a certain criteria to report it, right? You have to have the sources you have. Documentation is ideal. But you cover national college football. Pete Thamel covers national college football. You are not day-to-day Michigan football. There are people who are day-to-day Michigan football. They weren't the ones who broke this story. Why did it come out how it did? This is obviously my naivete talking. There wasn't a story in October. There wasn't a story in September that he was under investigation, even though it came out that he was being investigated by his bosses. to what do you attribute the story breaking like it did? Obviously, you, I think, were thorough about the sensitive nature of the story. But I guess the simple question is, why was it you breaking this story? Well, we'll avoid that. Well, I'm serious, though, right? If this is a known thing, right? We're trying to do the job. It's a known thing. All right. I mean, I think I know what you're asking. Yes. yeah you hear rumors okay so you hear uh sharon moore is doing this or just let's just take it to somebody else right there's a coach smith somewhere coach yes is having an affair okay i'm not investigating whether somebody's having an affair right that's like that i don't i don't care. That's not my job. That's not news, if you will. If the school wants to have a problem with it, they may not, then so be it. So then you would say, okay, it's having an affair with a staff member. Well, that would be a fireable offense. So still not my job to investigate Like whether like that's it is the school investigating. OK, now we have an actionable thing that you could report. Right. If you're running through this. That said, if the school investigates and determines there's nothing there. Now, I didn't. This is this was not a decision. This is not germane to the Michigan case. I did not sit there and make this determination. But let's say you hear Coach Smith at Old State U was under investigated. They looked into it, but they determined there was not an affair. Is it fair to anybody to run that story? Like, what the heck, man? Like, you can accuse anybody of anything, right? Or there could be some rumor. So nothing happened. So what happened with Michigan is, yeah, they heard that there was something with the staff member and they did an investigation. Both sides denied it. They couldn't find it. They did a human resources department looked into it. So they did their job on that, came away with nothing. The reason the story broke, and then later in November, they hired an outside counsel, outside firm to come in and take a look at the whole situation again, because the rumors are going and going. The reason the story broke was because the staff member involved, A, broke off the relationship on Monday, and then Sharon Moore continued to contact her, allegedly. and then she went to the university i think on i think it was a wednesday and said i we did have an affair we did have this situation whatever however you want to determine it and the school immediately fired him so now you have an actionable thing to report on so that's kind of just journalistically where you're at you can't just uh you can i'm just not going to be like hey i heard so-and-so is cheating on his wife like right of course that's right um and and when you're talking about relationships again you have what what is actually happening right if you remember the um mike price situation at alabama remember when mike price hotel room yeah right so the report was that he had gone upstairs i think and had a you know relation or something and i don't remember the whole thing with with this one what they turned out they didn't and again like unless you got video and that would be quite creepy and i don't want that how the hell do you know what someone actually did right like i don't know so there's a lot of like there's just a lot on that but yeah a lot of people knew or heard and then once these stories break everyone's like everybody knows everything oh i heard that i knew all about that that's like did you what was the sense of chiron more, I think, internally, right? The stories have come out after the fact about erratic behavior, reportedly, and, you know, texting or DMing and just behavior that wasn't consistent with a lot of people's experience with other head coaches, perhaps. Was that something that was known that, like, he's behaving a little bit differently as it relates to the expectations of a head coach? And you're just like, well, you know, some people are just different. Or did that sort of throw alarm bells off for a lot of people internally for a while leading up? You know, I don't know how fully to characterize that. I think that when you first hear that, you know, you hear some rumor that somebody, you know, is is is doing that. It could be anything, right? So and so is drinking a lot. So and so is playing a ton of golf. So and so. So from my perspective, you sit there and say, OK, this is probably going to end in a firing just just from experience. And that's the same with the players, right, or anything you do. So I think there was an expectation that sometimes it works. Some of the guys, you know, but generally speaking, if you're going to try to run the University of Michigan football program or any program like that, you better be dialed in on that job hardcore. So I don't I don't know all of the misgivings that they might have had on the staff. Some of them, you know. There's there's a lot of ways to get this thing done. Jim Harbaugh was a weird guy, right? Totally. So, you know, he would sit there and go play with his chickens in his backyard. And you'd say, OK, well, that's not what Nick Saban does. Right. But at the same time, he would find some it worked for for Jim Harbaugh. So you don't really know how how these guys do stuff or, you know, everyone was out for Hugh Freeze or playing too much golf. Right. Or at least recording his golf scores. That was really a thing. He was the, Hugh Freeze was an incredibly honest golfer. Yeah. You can find him online. Very disciplined. Yeah. Yes. He, because you do not want sandbaggers who don't report their scores. If you were, if you were a golfer and you gamble at golf, which, you know, so we give, you know, we've bashed Hugh plenty of times for maybe less reputable behavior. Let's give him some credit here for his golf ethics. So I think he kind of sit there, but I, you know, you'll hear complaints about coaches. Is it the head coach or is it an assistant coach who's mad? I don't know. And I'm not as dialed in on what everybody was complaining about or saying. But clearly, Sharon wasn't focused enough on it. You know that said they did win nine games They did So he might be the greatest coach of all time if he was doing all the stuff that alleged to him and he still managed to win nine games Like what everyone else excuse That's a good point. This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijan Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. I'm also curious about what was happening behind the scenes with his bosses or quote-unquote bosses. If you're a successful head coach, you're sort of in charge. Ward Manuel has come under fire for a lot of how he's handled the athletic department and the football program and his alleged relationship or lack thereof with Jim Harbaugh and the president and the interim president. Like, what was the the stability or lack thereof within the athletic department as this is happening? And how do you believe that affected things at the end, if at all? Yeah, I it's an interesting thing and it's going to play out. The school, you know, commissioned an external study into the culture of the athletic department or whatever failures there were or weren't. And I guess there'll be a public report on that. Like, you know, I can hear I can hear both sides of that. I mean, you go to Michigan, you think about Michigan, it has been a slew of headlines, negative headlines, scandals, criminal behavior. You have the, you know, the offensive coordinator before Sherell, Matt Weiss. You know, he's facing federal charges of computer hacking to take pictures, to steal pictures and videos of other students or student athletes around the country. Right. So he's got a serious charge. You have the Sharon Moore case. There's obviously the advanced scouting and Connor Stallion's a little different. There are other issues. A number of players, a number of coaches got DUIs and, you know, just different stuff that hit. and throughout the department. And so you say, well, this is the leadership. It's loose. At the same time, is it really like how many times, if you're on the ward manual camp, if I'm going to play prosecution, I say, look at all this stuff. What are we doing? You're in charge. It's your fault. If I'm a ward manual defense attorney, I'm saying, look, how many times do I have to tell a coach, don't get a DUI? Like, what the heck? This is this. These are grown. This is not his job to be monitoring this. I don't don't become a don't get federally indicted for hacking into other. Like, this is stuff we really had to mention. Don't have a relationship, inappropriate relationship with a staff member. I'm sure they went over that. Do I have to remind them every day? So like, at what point is their personal responsibility here of these people? And what point is it just a coincidence there's this many incidents or is it not a coincidence? And I guess that's what you find out. I could take either argument and someone could probably persuade me. But I do think there is the idea that you just sit there and say, it's all Ward Manuel's fault. Nobody's nobody's in favor of any of these things. the one that maybe you would be most inclined to say what's going on is, is the advanced scouting because that's more football oriented and, and it was unlikely to be criminal, but like, you're not going to convince me that there's an, there's an AD out there going, Hey, your offensive coordinator seems to be committing, you know, allegedly committing federal, federal crimes. And he's just like, yeah, but you know, we scored 56 last week against Purdue. We're cool. I just don't think that stuff happens there in the world anymore. Dan, I think what I'm struck most by with the story, clearly there's a lot going on here, but the speed, the speed with which everything came together. He was fired on December the 10th. A couple hours later, he allegedly goes to the home of the aforementioned staffer. Two days later, he's in court. Almost immediately. Yeah, almost immediately, right? two days later arraigned for felony third degree home invasion two misdemeanors he pleads not guilty he has pleaded not guilty he's going to be back in court on march the 19th will determine at that point whether or not they go forward and proceed to trial but within like a very compact sliver of time dan everything came together you were on there you're doing the reporting what can you like take us inside your head i'm really just like fascinated by this angle of you over there trying to stay on top of all of this. I'm sure phones ringing off the hook, just trying to get a sense for what is going on. How are you making heads or tails of what's happening in real time? Yeah. I mean, it's, so the firing was like, that, that happens, right? Tons of guys get fired and sometimes it's for something beyond wins and losses. And so when you, when the firing came, it was like, okay, um, the next step is going to be exactly what this relationship entail. And then almost immediately it's, um, the police detained him and you're like, oh boy, like this has changed the hour on a, that doesn't happen. And that was the part that I think really, um, took the story to a whole nother level. Cause now it's, now there's a mystery. Did he go over there to what? Why did he go to this house? Did he was he going to, you know, harm himself? What was going on? Is he having a breakdown? Then it just blew up. It became what I would say is like that becomes ABC News story. Right. It's everybody's talking about this and what is this is this is wild opposed to a fairly cliched, if unfortunate situation of head coach has inappropriate relationship with the staff member. Like we've seen this act before. We hadn't seen this one though, because of the legal stuff. The speed was unbelievable. And I was at the, the arraignment that Friday and you're maybe three, four miles from Shembecker Hall and the big house. And earlier the week, Shro Moore had a press conference to like introduce their new special team coordinator and talk about the bowl game and signing day had come and gone. And, um, I mean, he is, you know, he's the Michigan football coach. He's got a big, big job. And now he's sitting in those stark jailhouse whites on the, on the little camera. You know, I think that image was just, you know, you could just talk about fall from grace. It just was like, it just like, holy cow, This guy is this is this is an unbelievable drop that it could happen. The idea that you could open the day as the Michigan football coach and end the day in jail alone. But just then seeing the visual of that Friday was was amazing. So, yeah, it's one of the one of the more stunning stories that that happened. Just just and like you said, the speed and then. It's Christmas night and we're hearing, okay, it's going to be Whittingham. And we report that the next morning and almost immediately people are so happy it's Whittingham. I was back out at the evidentiary hearing for – I don't know what they call it. It's not evidentiary hearing. It's a probable cause conference where they didn't really do a lot. but it's mid-January now and Sharon Moore is in a suit and he's got his family there and all that but it's almost like nobody cares the world they care but the world has moved on Michigan fans like great we got a better coach the players didn't all bail because I don't really think he had that you didn't see a lot of guys like I only went to Michigan to play for Sharon Moore so the players stayed they got a better coach Michigan's just moved on they're like we don't care about this guy anymore. And so that was like one month later. And it was pretty, pretty stunning that too, that how quickly just, I don't care how, what you are or Bill Parcells saying once, when you get fired, you think you're the biggest thing in the world, NFL head coach. And then you realize you're just a pebble on the sand. Nobody cares. Right. You get fired. And two months later, you're the, you know, that guy. And so I'm sure more is no Bill Parcells. So it was even more so. The other thing that I'm struck by, especially now, given the news that Kyle Whittingham is going to be the next guy in charge. Obviously a very different personality. To what degree has Michigan and the athletic department and the institution as a whole moved on from this? Because from afar, and you're obviously a lot more plugged into this than we are, from afar it just feels like, oh, we turn the page. Kyle Whittingham's the guy. He's going to instill a different kind of culture. He was able to retain the likes of Bryce Underwood. You know, we're all looking forward to 2026. I understand you don't want to dwell on the controversial things of the past, but again, from afar, it just feels like it was just a very quick leap to the next thing. And we just hear about Sharon Moore and what went down every now and again in headlines. Yeah, no, I think I don't cover University of Michigan, so I'm not talking to everybody in that department. But yeah, it feels exactly like that. It's like, OK, we're done. Next guy. and you know and this is the other part for for the ward manual it complicates the ward manual situation if you want if you want to sit there and say we're going to blame you for all these scandals you say well uh i just hired kyle whittingham and not only did i hire a coach that can win but it's like a complete just scrubbing of the place right i mean you could not get a guy whose ethics and his personal life i mean like i learned long ago not to swear by anybody but if i'm covering a story like this involving kyle whittingham i'm really stunned okay like this is this guy a has this incredible track record but like the adults okay well i got an adult we just solved all of that all that's done oh and i've got dusty may and he's got the number three team and i got the number one hockey team and i got the like the whole department now once you bring whittingham in and presuming that he will see how they do on the field but i expect success at a good level like you say well what athletic department isn't doing better like what what athletic department would you switch with right um you could win multiple national you could win the three biggest sports in michigan are football that football mostly but then basketball and hockey are significant there this isn't a football school only they care about their basketball team and they care about their hockey team you win all you win two national titles this year. So it's such an interesting thing where I think the, whatever shame there was, if there was one or fans being like, ah, I can't believe that happened. It, the Whittingham hire just scrubbed that away. And everyone's just like, I don't care about Sharon Moore. We, he's, we got a better coach. We didn't really believe in the guy. I mean, he, he, he was fortunate to get the position. Um, you know, I don't think anybody sat there and said, oh, this is the guy we got to hire. He's, he's, he's a coach at that level. When you get one of these opportunities as, as Harbaugh put it once, you know, you're on third base. You know, you need to, you need to make sure you were capable of hitting the triple. And I don't think he had convinced anybody that he was the guy to do that. I think everything, what you're saying is correct. The, interesting thing to me is two weeks passed between when Sharon Moore was relieved of his duties and Kyle Whittingham was reportedly hired. What do you remember about those two weeks? There was a lot of like, hey, if Kalen DeBoer loses, maybe this. And then, you know, Kenny Dillingham, conversations have happened. And Jeff Braum is a name that's being like, what do you remember? Because I think what you're saying about like the ceiling of Michigan sports, especially right now, recent national championship, hockey, basketball etc is obviously going to be attractive to a ton of people this job for two weeks was open when any number of huge names hypothetically could have been swayed they're like you're going to be the next great guy at ann arbor look at the talent we have you know this quarterback of the future and the athletic department has a ton what do you remember about those two weeks and why wasn't every coach on the first plane to ann arbor well the timing was bad yes and um i remember there was like a there was a bit of like um oh michigan knew and then they they finally fired him after signing day or something like they could have done this earlier but they were they were timing it and um you know i remember saying to people like i am incredibly cynical a person uh like this is my job is to be suspicious of every single thing like that doesn't make any sense they let every candidate that they could have got signed somewhere else right so they were down the problem with the job was they either needed to get someone who had just jumped to a job to to like you know pull a like the tampering like it's one of the dabbo would have flipped out right like you're going a job for a week but now you come here like like manny diaz at temple yeah you needed something like that right or you needed somebody who had just re-upped because they hadn't gotten one of those jobs or took themselves off the market. So the market was small and, um, Kalen DeBoer was absolutely, I think if DeHalen DeBoer had lost the Oklahoma game, um, I don't know how it would have played out, but it certainly would not have like there, that was not just, uh, um, no way, right. It's not just some, some empty rumor. There would have been a a real possibility kaylin deborre is the head coach of michigan but that was that that's why that game was so weird um if you remember like oklahoma was killing them early right so then 17 nothing yeah yeah michigan fans were like okay we want to lose tonight so we get kaylin deborre they'd hurt all then they're getting killed like wait do we want this guy this is terrible and he's getting a raise after that game yeah but then he goes and wins the game and then they're like oh he is a good coach oh but now we can't get like it was a mess so then there was uh you know do we wait dillingham was involved he was not offered the job as my understanding um other coaches were kind of involved there was there was also nfl potential interest um how later can you wait um you know i always thought the fun it ended up happening i don't think it ever would have occurred but my my favorite one was john harbaugh somehow take right we just get a new harbaugh like who worked the last guy this one this one seems more better adjusted than the other one so let's take him who was available if they had given it was technically available for a minute there yeah it turned out yeah um but you were hearing stuff like that well what about mike tomlin like what if he wanted to go to like jesse minter certainly was a possibility there were all sorts of like anything was possible this is a it's a very very good uh job you know it's a good job to have so there was all of that but then it was but there was also limited and then you had guys like like eli drinkwitz was adamant he was not going to talk if there would be any contact he was the way he was talking to anyone until after their season which included a bowl game i think on like the 27th so i don't know whether there was interest on either side there but that was like he had that principle well good for eli drinkwitz but it almost got to that point but it didn't um and i think when whittingham got involved um you know it was confusing with whittingham because he got fired after sharon moore well he stepped down technically stepped down step down yeah technically technically but that was after right yes it was i think it was the 12th i think moore was he wasn't involved originally then he finally steps down and it was like did he get like what what is happening there and he was very out i didn't i'm not i'm not retiring right but you know whatever term you want to use utah wanted to go in a different direction and so now all of a sudden here's winning him and i think that you know it was you know when you looked at it he's not But Kalen DeBoer, like there was a lot of excitement about Kalen DeBoer. You sit there and, you know, the fans come up with John Harbaugh or, you know, could we get this guy or even Kenny Dillingham? Well, you know, young guys and like Whittingham doesn't bring that burst of like, oh, my goodness. But then all of a sudden it's like, wait, this is exactly what we need. And I think he was able to win that over. And at a time when the school absolutely needed a head football coach who was, again, the adult in the room where you could just be like, OK, everyone exhale. This is going to be good. You probably couldn't have found a better candidate to bring that part. Now, can he win at the level that wins you a national championship? I don't know. That's like the only thing that he hasn't done. Right. But, you know, as he can win five star recruiting battles, he's won some. But those are very hard. and michigan's not they don't win national championships all the time like they you know i mean they've won two and since the 60s um so you know i just think it it panned out the way it all did but it was it was an interesting search because it was very limited and a lot of it was like who would be a candidate where if that thing had opened if this if if the relationship with with the romantic relationship or whatever this relationship is, it broken off in November and Sharon Moore had been fired on November 10th. Almost every college football coach would have been a candidate. Okay. And so when Whittingham gets the job, was this a Michigan like, okay, we're resetting the search and this is like a 48-hour thing, conversation, oh, there's interest here, let's move quickly. Were they keeping him warm? Did he express interest after he stepped down? What is known about how long this process took? I don't know. I don't know exactly. I know that the DeBoer, the Oklahoma-Alabama playoff game was a big game. And that was, what, the 19th? Yes. Right. So Whittingham was hired the 26th. 26th. So by, it's my understanding as I look back on it and I could be wrong, but by the 24th, he was so it about uh I think it was that Sunday the 21st I think I reported this is going to like don this is going to take a little while Like it and we hearing after christmas maybe even after after new year um i remember that and it wasn like there going to be a higher tomorrow morning uh which is always uh that that was just like a tweet we put out i mean it was like caveat who knows yeah but um you know again not that's the kind of reporting that There harms nobody. So I think in those first couple of days after he became the candidate, and then I think really by the 24th, he had been settled on and he had settled on it. But he wanted to like there was no contact, as I understand it, between Michigan and him on Christmas. You know, he's a devout, you know, believe it's about his faith and all that. He wanted to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas focused on that. And then obviously by the 26th, we reported early in the 26th, Pete and I. But we had heard by Christmas night that it was going to be Whittingham. And they're just trying to piece that together until we were able to do in the morning. But so I think that was kind of the time. I don't know that he was a candidate. I think the DeBoer thing was just. I'm not going to say this is absolutely what was going to happen, because I don't know if Kalen DeBoer would have left Alabama. And I don't know that they would hire him, but there was certainly a scenario where you could envision that if Oklahoma beats Alabama and they want to go with DeBoer and DeBoer is sitting there saying, yeah, I'll take this job, then he's hired. But that didn't happen. Somebody was entertaining the idea. Yeah. He wasn't really ruling it out, let's put it that way. There's ruling it out and there's, you know. Fair. Like nobody was going after Dan Lanning. Like he heard nothing. Dan Lanning's like, I'm not leaving. And then you never heard all the jobs. You never heard one buzz of like, oh, Lanning's possible. Like no gossip. I mean, agents, coaches, ADs, they gossip nonstop. When you don't hear anything about a guy, they actually mean it. Right. All right. Dan Wetzel from ESPN, ESPN.com. I think it's fair to say once in a decade showing here on the podcast. wait 2036 right around your 40th for then i promise you we will we will definitely bring you back in my 40s then it'll be uh be a little more mature oh my god hey i hope you guys have 10 more years of success it's probably because you rarely have me on that this show is not at all no i'm proud of you guys we're leaving views on the floor that's what this is yeah well yeah bring the eye candy yeah i get it sex sells all right well thank you world works thank you so much for your time we will do this again at some point soon and uh keep up the good work thank you thanks guys this is the biggest night in podcasting the countdown is on to our 2026 iheart podcast awards live from south by southwest march 16th we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app, Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like B. John, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. And with that, Ty, extremely pleased to welcome on making his solid verbal debut. Yes. From the Mountain Time Zone. And honestly, we don't dip into the Mountain Time Zone enough. Host on ESPN Radio 700, formerly Pac-12 Radio, formerly light heavyweight. Yes? Yes. um sean o'connell welcome to the show thanks for having me yeah um light heavyweight is probably firmly in the rear view at this moment oh you know we could cut down if we ever needed to oh my well first of all okay let's start briefly there because we have a lot to get into with utah football and kyle whittingham uh you're cutting down what's the process so obviously you do the whole healthy diet for six to eight weeks and you whittle down as much as you can in a healthy way with without hurting yourself. And then you get to, you know, like 48 hours before the fight and you dehydrate yourself aggressively to get the final, in my case, 13 to 19 pounds off, depending on how well I had done with the dieting thing. And yeah, that's just, you know, it's what you think it is. It's working out in a sauna suit. And then once your body gets too fatigued and dehydrated, you just go sit in a sauna and give yourself, you know, 15 minutes in the sauna, two minutes out of the sauna. And you do that whole rigmarole until you're dry as a raisin. And then you step on a scale at exactly 205 pounds, and then you aggressively rehydrate and you're back to your walk-around weight in about six hours. Okay. We are doing a show about the sort of both sides of the Utah saga with moving to Morgan Scali and having Kyle Whittingham step down, although that's maybe a loaded term for what all kind of went down, and making his way to Ann Arbor to become the new head coach of Michigan. I'd like to know the context of what people should know about the final season the final few days the final three four five years of Kyle Whittingham maybe behind the scenes as it relates to who he was and meant to Utah football. So if you could do that relatively quickly, that'd be great. But what what should people know about how Kyle Whittingham sort of finished out his career at Utah short term and medium term? Well, I think important to focus on the fact that he went from maybe the worst season of his career, of his tenure, with that five and seven year where you had these huge expectations, you were expected to win a Big 12 conference, and then you didn't even make a bowl game. You bounce back from that with a 10-win season, which is something that right now there's a lot of angry Ute fans that don't want to focus on, and there's probably a lot of people around the country that don't realize how important that turnaround was for him personally, for the program, because of where the landscape of NIL is and all that stuff. You can't really afford, if you're the University of Utah, to have back-to-back bad seasons and then dig yourself out of that hole. So that was massively important. And I thought it was a real testament to who he is as a coach and the culture that he had built at the University of Utah in his time. And then when you get to the end of it, here's what I was told. He was initially all season long planning the exit. And I was reading the tea leaves like everyone else was. And, you know, he had the entire Whittingham clan show up at that Kansas State game, the final home game they played. There were people there that don't usually show up to the games. They were taking pictures on the field after the game. It was like, OK, this is it. This is his last appearance at home. He's going to retire after this. And then in the 11th hour, I think he confronted the reality of being a super healthy, super invigorated, you know, 64 year old who's in better shape than you or I. I was like, why do I need to walk away? I'm making six and a half million bucks a year to do my dream job. I'd like to stay. And at that point, a lot of the booster base and the athletic department in some ways had kind of decided they were ready to move on, that the transition plan was going to happen and was going to happen now. And he wasn't given the carte blanche like, oh, you want to stay? How long do you want to stay? It was like, well, hold on a minute. We've been doing this now for three, four years. Let's talk about this. that was happening concurrent with a scandal in Michigan and suddenly an opening in Michigan and agents do their job. And I think that he realized, oh, wait, if I'm not super welcome here at a place I've been 21 years and there is mutual interest with a blue blood, you know, top five job in America, maybe I should take my talents to South Beach, to Ann Arbor. And it kind of felt like that was sort of mutually agreed upon that whether you think that was the right thing for the athletic department to do or for him to do or whatever I think it'll all come out in the wash but it was very much going to be his farewell season at the University of Utah until that final week when the Sharon Moore stuff happened and that was the same he had a clause in his contract that he was supposed to inform the university that Friday whether or not he intended to return. And when he said, yeah, I think I would rather return and I would like an extension and a raise is what some people are saying. The athletic director has refuted that, but it was not the warm welcome he expected maybe after all of he's done for Utah to receive. So he decided to go to Ann Arbor. And Morgan Scali was named essentially the head coach in waiting way in advance of this. And again, this is what I have heard. I think a lot of people had heard even years beforehand. People were saying, we don't know how long he's actually going to be in Salt Lake City. Obviously, you know, the good seasons, down seasons, you know, obviously horrific events off field with with Aaron Lowe and Ty Jordan that it seemed that he was understandably very worn down. Just being the head of a huge program for a long time and obviously having to deal with and lead a program going through the tragedies that they did. So this wasn't even a first time this kind of narrative was broached, I don't believe. Is that true? No, no, you're absolutely right. And if I was better at my job, I would have explained all that concisely. No, you're good. Morgan Scali was was named head coach in waiting. I mean, effectively five years ago. And then, you know, there was an old text message that surfaced. So they took that title away from him temporarily and then they gave it back to him. And even when there was that minor scandal unfolding, there was never any question that Morgan Scali was going to be the guy. And Kyle Whittingham said after he had already moved to Ann Arbor, he said in an interview, I might have been on the Dan Patrick show, where he said, look, I made a mistake when I started answering questions about how long I intended to stay. Right. Right. Because people would ask, you know, hey, you're 60 years old now. You're 59 years old now. You've been here for 17 years, whatever. And he would instead of being like, yep, I'm coaching until the wheels fall off. He would say things like, well, I'm not going to be a lifer. I'm not going to coach as long as my dad did. I'm going to spend some time with my family, my grandkids. And he started to kind of like set expectations that people held him to, whether that was fair or not. We talked a little bit before we hit go here, Sean, about the fan base as a whole and its reaction, maybe not just specifically to this, but I'm curious, where is the fan base at with this? Because we have seen this play out at a number of other colleges and institutions. Someone's been there a while. Either they wear out their welcome, they decide to step away, can go a million different directions. But the fan base and how it feels about those circumstances is always kind of interesting to chart. Do people overwhelmingly approve of moving in a different direction? Are there some people that are noticeably angry at Kyle Whittingham that he would take his talents to Ann Arbor? Give us a sense for where the Ute fan base is at. I think that a lot of people were ready for the transition to happen. Everyone's very optimistic about Morgan Scali. I mean, he's one of the favorite sons of the program. He's never been anywhere else, as you guys are aware. grew up in the shadow of the University of Utah, played at the University of Utah, and became a GA and has been there. He's never gone to any other place to work. He is the man, right? He's a Utah man through and through. And so a lot of people were kind of sick of the fact that the offense never really takes off under Kyle Whittingham. This last year, he refuted some of that. And we're ready to see what Morgan can do. Especially, he's a charismatic, energetic guy, and there's a feeling that maybe he'll do a better job rallying booster support and helping Utah keep up in the NIL space, whereas Kyle was somewhat resistant to all of that. And whether that's accurate or not, that was the perception. the angst from the fan base comes in with Kyle Whittingham insisting that he would always do what is right for the program and he would step down and retire when the program was in a better place and when he knew that it was time and things were ready for him to move on and for Utah to be where it needed to be and instead of leaving the program in a good place he did what every other coach taking a new job does. And he said, all right, well, I'm going to set myself up as best I can at my new spot. And he took his entire offensive staff. He took one of the best offensive line coaches in the country. He took the best recruiter from the former Utah staff in Lewis Powell, who's a defensive ends coach, who is just an absolute monster on the recruiting trail. and he handpicked, you know, the four or five best talents that he thought would move from Utah to Michigan and the Big Ten seamlessly from a player perspective, including a legacy recruit who had enrolled in classes and was brand new to the University of Utah, was an early enrollee out of high school, and the second highest rated guy that the Utes had ever gotten out of high school. and that guy's at Michigan now. So that's where the fan base said, oh, you wanted to leave us in a better place, huh? And you stripped the cupboards bare. Again, that's a perception thing. I think Utah is going to be fine. I think every coach in the world would do the same thing. And what are you going to do? You're going to tell the Michigan fan base? Well, I promised all the people in Salt Lake City that I wouldn't bring the best coaches and players with me. I mean, come on. He's doing what any one of us would do. But fans are not rational when these emotional things happen. I suspect we're going to have a bunch of Michigan and Utah fans that are listening to this episode. So I think it's fair to ask if you can compare and contrast the differences between Whittingham and Scali. On the Whittingham side, obviously, Michigan fans are curious to know what they're getting. And on the Utah side, what do they get with Morgan Scali that they didn't have with Whittingham? I'll start with the Utah side what you're going to get a lot of this Morgan Scali and Kyle Whittingham are more similar than they are different so if Utah fans are expecting that the program is going to be a totally new look and and a hundred percent turnaround not the case Morgan is going to rightfully so adopt all the good things from the Whittingham regime and he's going to mold it into his own style I think the big difference is going to be, he has stated over and over again, he wants to be more creative offensively. He wants to be more threatening down the field. He wants to be more of a wide open passing, less than the Whittingham ball control, like slug it out type offensive approach. And look, again, to be fair to Kyle Whittingham, he brought in Jason Beck this past year and they made some real magic. But a lot of that was through the run game. Utah had the number two rushing attack in the country, they were a marginal passing attack. And Morgan over and over has said, no, we are going to, you have to win through the air in college football. We're still going to be dominant at the line of scrimmage and we're going to run the ball, but you have to have things that Utah hasn't had in 20 years. You haven't had a thousand yard receiver at the University of Utah in over a decade, right? I mean, these are difficult things to reconcile when you're trying to win modern Big 12 championships and make a case that you should be in the college football playoff and you're going to win games there. So I think that and Morgan Scali, he's not yet jaded against the criticisms of the fan base and playing the, well, we're not going to show you any pieces of practice type stuff. Kyle Whittingham got to a point where practice was closed, media didn't get to watch anything, he didn't want to have to answer questions he did it because it was in the contract morgan is at the beginning of his head coaching tenure and is a lot more uh charismatic and loquacious and and transparent with things like that i hope we never beat that out of him by being ridiculous fans for michigan fans who are wondering what you're going to get with kyle whittingham i mean look he's a man of great integrity he is the perfect solution uh to bounce back from a scandal with a young coach, extramarital affair type situation. I mean, Kyle Whittingham is the antithesis of all that. He is the steadying force that your athletic department and your football program probably need right now. He's also an old school guy that is, at times, going to frustrate you because he's not going to open things up in the passing game, or he's going to have a hard time making a case to the elite wide receivers in a recruiting class or in the transfer portal, yeah, come to Michigan instead of going to Ohio State. Because, I mean, people are going to do their research, and they're going to be like, this guy's offenses don't produce big-time wide receiver talents. Right. And I think that is a hurdle he's going to have to get over in Ann Arbor. And, you know, he never did in Salt Lake City. So he'll have more talent at his disposal in Ann Arbor to do it. Maybe that's the solution he's looking for. How did the Jason Beck, Devin Dampier thing sort of play out when they arrived? And this, I think, is instructive for what's going on at Michigan as well as, you know, he's building around a really good quarterback in terms of physical potential and skill. Was it just Kyle Whittingham saying, we need a change? I need something dramatic after, obviously, all those years of Cam Rising and injuries. Like we need to reset because as you mentioned, like Utah was a playoff team this past year, other than not getting into the playoff, right? They were of playoff quality. Their lone losses were two teams that were either in the playoff or, you know, of playoff quality. The offense was, I think, the most improved offense in America related to where they were in 2024. How did that come together? Obviously, Jason Beck has ties to the state. was this a Kyle Whittingham, you know, introspective, we need to do something dramatic to change? Or was this sort of placed on him from others that were like, you need to make a change because what's going on on offense is not working. Well, I felt a little bit bad because Andy Ludwig kind of fell on the sword of what was an injury riddled two seasons right And most of those happened on the offensive side of the ball and you weren able to get things going I mean Utah literally was down to their fifth quarterback in 2023 and in 2024 All respect to Luke Batari, he's an awesome player, but that's not the guy, right? So, yeah, they made a change on the offensive staff and they were looking for, like so many other teams were last off cycle, last offseason cycle. They were looking for a coordinator that could come in and revitalize the offense. And also Cam Rising had moved on medical retirement. So you needed someone with a quarterback connection. And there was the Oklahoma thing where they brought in Arbuckle and Mater and Utah was in the in the running for that. But how are you going to beat Oklahoma? And, you know, the familiarity that a lot of people on the staff had with Jason Beck, the New Mexico coaching staff was, I mean, that's Bronco Mendenhall, who was an old rival of Kyle Whittingham's and of Utah's for a long time. There's all these crossovers and ties between those two staffs. And Morgan Scali, this is where it gets so interesting. Morgan Scali was heavily involved in bringing Jason Beck from New Mexico to Utah, convincing Devin Dampier to come with him because he was like, I mean, every single person in the state and in the program thought that Kyle Whittingham was going to be done after this year. And then Morgan Scali would then be working with Jason Beck and Devin Dampier, who still had eligibility. So he was a huge part of bringing those guys to the University of Utah. And obviously the marriage worked out famously, even when he was banged up, Devin Dampier was incredibly productive. And they got a guy behind him in Bird Ficklin, who was just as good, if not better, with more arm talent, although he's young and doesn't have the level of experience. So, I mean, it was a beautiful thing, and it allowed Utah to have that bounce-back season, and unfortunately, it ended up not being a long-term marriage, because when Kyle Whittingham says, hey, do you want to go coach in Ann Arbor? Do you want to go to Michigan? Jason Beck has to be thinking the same thing that Jay Hill is thinking. The defensive coordinator Kyle brought from BYU that Morgan Scali was thinking under Kyle Whittingham, well, he's only going to be here for a couple more years. And if I do a good job and if we win, I could be the next guy there. And to be the next guy at Michigan is one heck of a thing. How is recruiting, or I guess how has recruiting been at Utah in your eyes? Because from afar, it seemed like, okay, they would find developmental guys and they'd get them there and they'd stay around for a long time and they produce NFL level talent. And I felt like suddenly Utah was upping the ante, especially in California, they were finding more guys and Utah was really doing a terrific job of building out a deeper and deeper roster. And now you have this enormous change, even though there are guys returning under Morgan Scali, especially on defense. What is the state of Utah recruiting now? And what was behind the scenes? You mentioned an assistant coach who was excellent the defensive ends coach you know what what was the ride of of utah recruiting these past few years under kyle winningham they've done an incredible job kind of consistently through the the pack 12 and big 12 era of building that pipeline and continuing to get better and better players and add more depth like you're saying and i know that a lot of programs around the country probably feel like oh, we do it better than other people do it. But they really have done a remarkable job of sort of keeping the Wolves at bay and not losing a ton of talent to the transfer portal and keeping convincing guys, even guys who aren't playing a ton from year to year to stick around and to develop and say, hey, just trust us. We will get you to the league. Trust us. You're going to be on the field next year, whatever. And, you know, they really got people to buy in. Now, the question is, will that remain under Morgan Scali? I mean, no bones about it. Lewis Powell was the best recruiter on the staff. That's why he's at Michigan. And he was a big reason why the Celese Moa kid was coming to the University of Utah. He flipped from Tennessee. I will say this, though. The number one recruit in the history of Utah football signed this last December, and he is still on the roster. He's an early enrollee. He's a five-star offensive tackle. He's the number five kid in the entire class. His name's Kelvin Obat, and he played for Jordan Gross, who's now the offensive line coach at the University of Utah. He played for him in high school up in a little farming town called Fruitland, Idaho. So the pipeline is going to be what you talked about already. Finding guys that are maybe a little bit overlooked, developmental type guys, guys from the FCS level or from the group of five level that have production and that you can say he might be an inch too short for Alabama to be in love with or he might be 20 pounds too light for Texas to be in love with but that's what Utah has used from the beginning of Utah football history to climb to where they're at right now and Morgan Scali was one of those guys and Jordan Gross was one of those guys. And I mean, Luther Ellis in some ways was one of those guys and he's still your defensive line coach. So they're going to get those guys. They're going to find those guys and they're going to continue to develop those guys in an altered landscape where you don't have as much time to develop people. You got to do it faster, but that's what they're going to do. How do people feel about Morgan Scali? Sorry, Ty. I mean, you basically have a coach and you mentioned to the you mentioned this that this is kind of all people have known in the modern era and even though morgan scally is raised and you know uh been a youth through and through um this is different this is a lot of change for a place that hasn't had that change basically ever you have a quarterback who's there in in cam rising forever there's no change like even was it travis wilson seemed to be around forever like you go back and there's just never any change with utah How are people who root for this team handling it? Well, it's funny because you're absolutely right. We've never had change. And the biggest change is that you elevate a guy who's been here since 1997 to be your head coach. So how much of a change is that, really? No, I think people are excited. Obviously, there's cautious optimism because you did lose some important players and you lost some important coaches and guys that are well-respected. But people believe in Morgan Scali. And Morgan Scali is going to meet the fan base and the booster base in the middle in a way that Kyle Whittingham refused to or was unable to maybe. Morgan is just better with people. And we'll see if that changes at all after the rigors of being a head coach wear him down. but people are optimistic and believe in the vision he has. His press conference was an absolute home run, and I know that doesn't mean you're going to win a bunch of football games, but there's trust that Morgan Scali knows how to connect Utah football back to its glory days. He was a player in one of the best seasons in Utah football history when Urban Meyer showed up. Well, those were two of the best seasons in Utah football history. He's been a coach through the undefeated Sugar Bowl season, through the Pac-12 championship seasons, and he's a pretty darn good recruiter in his own right. So there's trust in this fan base that Morgan Scali is the right guy, and now we just have to see how it plays out. Sean, how does Kyle Whittingham handle bitter rivalries? Because Holy War at Utah was recently, before he left on a three-game losing streak, he now steps into a situation. clearly michigan ohio state is the preeminent rivalry in the sport is there anything instructive from how whittingham handled that matchup and all of the emotions around it and played at byu by the way to be clear yeah yeah so there there's i think something to be learned about how he handled that circumstance in salt lake perhaps how he might handle a similar circumstance now in ann arbor Kyle Whittingham is petty in the rivalry world in the exact right way. Great. That's awesome. He will refuse to give Ohio State any credit for anything. He will at some point probably be reluctant to say the name of the school. He will do all the things that you want. I mean, he turned his back over the years on his own alma mater where he was a great player. He was a defensive player of the year in the conference. He was like a BYU football legend. And he got to the point where he didn't even want to play BYU. He didn't want to hear from the fans. He was exactly as petty as you want a head coach to be. And he handles it well. He's like passive aggressive about the rivalries rather than overly aggressive, overtly like disrespectful. He does it in ways that will just needle Ohio State fans to their core and make them despise Kyle Whittingham. And that's what you want from a Michigan coach. I was going to say that's exactly what you want from the Michigan coach, is it not? My last question is just sort of along those lines as well. It's just like you've spent time watching Kyle Whittingham closely. He's going to a bigger place. Utah is a big winning place. Michigan is a different level than most other programs in the country. When you heard the news and, you know, aside from like, you know, the interpersonal stuff that he has an impeccable reputation, what was your reaction in terms of like, will what he does translate to that kind of fishbowl, a different level than most places? You know, were you immediately like intrigued? Were you immediately like, oh, I don't know if that's going to work in Ann Arbor. You mentioned the receiver thing and not developing a 1,000-yard receiver. What was your reaction when you heard that this was going to be the move? Well, for me, I'm not a member of the fan base who despises Kyle Whittingham for doing what everyone else should do. I have a ton of respect for him. I was a member of the team way back in the day when he was taking over for the first year as head coach from Urban Meyer. I love Kyle Whittingham. I think, you know, he's one of the few guys in college football that is who he says he is and actually is a person you can admire and that deserves a lot of the respect that he gets. There was always a sense at the University of Utah, wow, we really are lucky to have a guy who's willing to stay here in Salt Lake City instead of moving on to one of these big time jobs. but because we had, he was our guy. Uh, there was also a sense like, man, what could he do if he had Michigan money? What could he do if he had access to the recruits that USC has access to, or that Oklahoma or that whoever, and now he's got access to that. And all of us believed he would be a national championship contender if there were no limiting factors. and there are no excuses in Michigan. There are no limiting factors in Michigan. So even though it hurts people in Salt Lake City to see it and to say it, I expect Kyle Whittingham in this short-term contract to be in the college football playoff and potentially in a national championship game before he walks away. Obviously winning it all when you see what Kurt Signetti is doing and you see what Miami is back and all this stuff, you got to get a lot of luck and everything's got to break your way. But all of the governors are off with Kyle Whittingham and he's got four more years with all the money he possibly needs and with all the talent at his disposal. If he's as good of a head coach as I think he is, he will at the very least be in a playoff and probably competing in a real way for a national championship. All right, why don't we leave it there? again big thanks to you sean o'connell for stopping on by we will definitely be in touch as this season of utah football unfolds we'll have to bring you back on to talk about through uh in short order okay all right looking forward to it thanks for having me on guys oh our pleasure thanks for coming on all right dan there you go we've got dan wetzel we've got sean o'connell dan has not been on this show in forever sean's never been on this show so excited that we were able to bring both guys on here to assemble the masses and talk through what exactly transpired on both fronts fascinating stuff yeah look and uh michigan becomes i think more interesting kyle whittingham becomes more interesting right that he has this opportunity that he's never had because he's been such a lifer at utah and i'm not again saying that to denigrate utah utah has done a fantastic job competing at basically the highest levels of the sport but you know michigan is one of the sort of gilded few in terms of its size and reputation, whatever. And they win a national championship a couple of years ago and to see what he'll do. And I think Sean hit it the nail on the head. He was just like, OK, how does he sort of scale the mountain of convincing receivers to come to Michigan? Obviously, Bryce Underwood having a terrific year this year. And, you know, if he is an NFL type talent at the end of things, then yes, receivers will line up to play at Michigan in 2027. but yes that that is the thing that Kyle Whittingham I think immediately right now is going to have to prove because Michigan having a terrific defense in 2026 I don't think would surprise a lot of people no given some of the talent that returns obviously what Jay Hill has done at BYU Kyle Whittingham's reputation and building defenses bringing in the assistance that he brought in I don't have Michigan's schedule in front of me I know they go to Oregon and the Ohio State game is in Columbus yeah it's in Columbus this year so he's got his work cut out for him on the road anyway um but yeah that's the idea of just like okay you showed a good amount of pop last year on offense for utah it's a different quarterback uh for michigan who i think is is a more complete quarterback at his best uh what can you do for this quarterback and this offense immediately and how can you uh attract a top receiver from atlanta from austin from la well that Seattle that that's Ann Arbor I mean I think a lot of what we're going to see take place at Michigan completely separate from the fact that Kyle Whittingham as Sean put it out is the guy that they're bringing in as a stabilizing force in many ways the antithesis of what they had previously sure that he will be judged on some level by how he's able to stabilize the program and move it forward hopefully without skipping too much of a beat but we're kidding ourselves if we don't look at this from the perspective solely of Bryce Underwood and his development. And that has not necessarily been the strongest for Kyle Whittingham and his previous stop quarterback development, but he will be graded, I think, based on how he brings Underwood along, certainly by how well they do with respect to the Big Ten and the college football playoff. Just going to be super fascinating to watch here. We appreciate, again, the time of both Dan and Sean to come on here and give us their insight. If you are listening to this at home, I mean, look, this was a season that was not short on a whole multitude of interesting angles. So if there are any other items out there that you want us to cover in this way, looking at a couple of different sides of it, you can always hit us up. Televerbal at Gmail dot com or any of the social media platforms. Would love to get your feedback on this. And if there are any other topics that are of interest to do the full deep dive with Dan, this is fun. I agree. By the way, Michigan's scheduled in 2026 because the Big Ten has released its schedules, and we haven't talked about this a ton. They start with Western Michigan. Not nothing. Won the MAAC last year, right? If they lose to Western Michigan, Kyle Whittingham's seat is going to be warm immediately, but continue. That's a flash fry of a seat. They host Oklahoma, who returns a good amount on both sides of the ball and added a good amount through the portal. They have Iowa at the end of September at home in Ann Arbor as well. there's a maybe a trappiness between iowa and penn state though there's a buy-in there but it's at minnesota between those two games don't get me started with minnesota man i had the support call we did do the support call in december we had a bunch of people minnesota fans chime in and we agreed that we're going to do it again next year you're ready to be hurt again yeah this is this is the reality that is minnesota football but minnesota has also been a trap game before for other teams. We're a trap game for Nebraska this year. I think it's fair to label it as such. They have Indiana a week after Penn State, so that could be a difficult one-two for a new coach. Oregon's on the road after Michigan State, so I think Michigan State is a good deal behind Michigan. You're not even done. It already sounds brutal. And UCLA, with their playoff-caliber head coach, Bob Chesney, sandwiched between road spots at Oregon and at Ohio State. So this is tough sledding for Kyle Whittingham in year one. That's really tough. We'll see what he can do. I don't know. Write in solid verbal at gmail.com. Again, if you got topic suggestions or if you are a fan of one of these teams, just college football in general, and you got something to say. Yeah. We read all of our messages. We get many, but we read them all, and we would welcome your feedback as per usual. Utah's schedule is not as bad for Morgan Scali in year one. Holy War is at home. They don't have Texas Tech on here. They don't have ASU on here. So maybe a slightly. It's at Iowa State, at Colorado, at Cincinnati, at Arizona, at TCU. Those are all quality teams, the very least. But, you know, missing ASU, missing Texas Tech, and Holy War at home, I think you take it. All right. Why don't we leave it there? Again, big thanks to our two guests of honor today. Dan Rubenstein will do it again later in the week. Make sure you hit follow. Make sure you hit subscribe so that you don't miss any of the episodes. Again, they drop Tuesday, Thursday, all throughout the offseason. For that guy over there, Dan, for myself, Ty, we'll catch you all in a few days. In the meantime, stay solid. Peace. This is the biggest night in podcasting. The countdown is on to our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live from South by Southwest, March 16th, we'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative, talented creators in the industry. It's truly a who's who of the podcasting world. Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is... See all the nominees now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. 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