Let me paint you a picture real quickly. First, at the beginning of the year the Utes weren’t even sure if Kyle Whittingham was going to return to be the head coach. Second, Coach Whittingham and Utah’s Athletic Director Chris Hill weren’t on speaking terms. Third, the Utes lost both defensive and offensive coordinators. Finally, his team started out the season not even ranked.
Since then, Whittingham has signed a new 1-year extension (and a $200,000 raise, I might add, making him one of the highest-paid employees of the State of Utah) and gone on to lead Utah to a 4-0 record with wins vs. Michigan and at Oregon. Oh yeah, and his team is now ranked #10 in the nation.
With such a big swing, you would think that the head coach would have an ego but he has been surprisingly humble about his team’s success. He said, “It certainly means more now than it did two or three weeks ago, but we still don’t pay a whole lot of attention to (the rankings), we have our own goals and things we want to accomplish. We just have to take those on our own timeline and not worry about the external stuff.”
Maybe all the turnover was just what Whittingham needed to go from a good coach to the nation’s best coach in college football…at least in this first month.
ESPN’s Top 5 Coaches
- Kyle Whittingham, Utah
- Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss
- Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
- Jim McElwain, Florida
- Matt Rhule, Temple
