With the college football season just days away, everyone is 0-0 and expectations are high, especially for blue-blood programs like Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame and many more. For the last three seasons, the Big Ten has taken over as the dominant conference in the College Football Playoff, with Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana each winning championships in that span.
Since winning the natty in 2023, Michigan has fallen from its lofty 15-0 perch, going 8-5 and 9-4 during the last two seasons, a tumult-filled time that was the Sherrone Moore coaching stint.
To get the program back on track, Michigan went out in December of 2025 and hired Kyle Whittingham, the longtime coach of the Utah Utes, to be the 20th head coach in program history. Whit has run a clean program for 21 seasons at Utah, built an NFL pipeline, and navigated transitions to the Pac-12 and Big 12 in his coaching career.
And while he guided Utah from the Mountain West Conference into the Pac-12, and later into the Big 12, he's never faced the kind of pressure he will in Ann Arbor, where the fans are hungry to get back to being at the top and beating Ohio State again.
While the Holy War between BYU and Utah was a heated rivalry, it pales in comparison to Ohio State and Michigan, which is one of the biggest games in the country each year.
Whittingham has been good. Can he be great?
Looking at Whittingham's track record, he had an impressive 177-88 record in his 21 seasons at Utah (.667 winning percentage). A closer look shows that in 13 of those seasons, his teams combined to go 92-66 (.582), which could create problems if he has several of those seasons with the Wolverines.
Finding a way to unlock top QB Bryce Underwood after an underwhelming freshman season (2.428 passing yards, 11 TDs, nine interceptions) will be priority one for Whittingham and new offensive coordinator Jason Beck. The offense in Utah a year ago was fun to watch, and Underwood has a higher ceiling than Utah's Devon Dampier, who's pretty darn good.
Michigan is a job with tremendous pressure - four and five-star recruits, a huge athletics budget, and mile-high expectations each year, not to mention a lot more press coverage than in Salt Lake City.
Eight home games will help, with the toughest being Oklahoma (September 12th) and Indiana (October 24th), but the toughest two road games are November 14th at Oregon and the rivalry game at Ohio State on November 28th.
Kyle Whittingham needs to get the Wolverines to 10 wins in Year One, in a more difficult Big Ten, and hope that one or more conference opponents stumble to have a shot at the CFP this year.
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