SALT LAKE CITY — Known for his matter-of-fact analysis during postgame media sessions, rarely showing emotion either way, Kyle Whittingham choked up briefly after Utah’s final home game this season.
Was it a hint into his plans? Many connected the dots, assuming that after 21 years Whittingham was reflecting on coaching his final game at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
At 66, as he has repeatedly said, Whittingham is on a season-by-season basis. Utah’s all-time winningest coach could hang up his whistle in the next few weeks or announce he’s returning to the sidelines next season.
He’s contractually obligated to inform the Utah bosses of his plans early in December, depending on the team’s postseason opportunities. Keeping with his “here today, gone tomorrow” philosophy, as he said after a recent practice, a retirement announcement likely won’t come until the season concludes.
“As soon as everything is culminated and you have a few days, or maybe even a week or two, to sit back and evaluate and see where you’re at and go from there,” he said on Monday.
About that mini breakdown after last Saturday’s game? Attribute it to his relationships with the players.
Every season preceding the final home game, Whittingham speaks of “sending the seniors out the right way,” which didn’t look possible late in the game. Trailing Kansas State by 10 points, the Utes rallied to win a game “for the ages,” as Whittingham called it.
“Just wanted them to be able to go out the right way,” he said. “Against all odds, they did and it looked like for a minute it wasn’t going to happen, and so they were able to do that. It got the best of me. I don’t usually get too emotional.”
Utah’s social media account recognized 19 players, including starters with eligibility remaining. NFL prospects — offensive lineman Caleb Lomu and the Fano brothers, offensive lineman Spencer and defensive lineman Logan — all followed Whittingham’s standard advice to participate in pregame festivities for players potentially leaving early.
“It’s just the seniors,” Whittingham said. “You want them so badly to go out on a positive note. They have been instrumental to our success for a lot of years, that group, and provided such great leadership this year and have done such a great job of keeping things on track.”
Another possible clue into his future came last July during the annual Big 12 media days. Making the rounds during interviews, Whittingham indicated he couldn’t retire after last season’s dismal performance. After starting 4-0 in the program’s inaugural Big 12 season, the Utes won only one game over the final two months on the way to their worst season since 2013.
Hard to find any flaw in his reasoning. For sure, he deserved the opportunity to restore the program’s luster.
Well, here they are. Without question, the Utes have proven last season’s misery was in large part related to injuries, most notably the on-going saga of quarterback Cam Rising’s inability to stay healthy.
With transfer quarterback Devon Dampier and his freshman sidekick Byrd Ficklin, Utah’s offense has unleased the nation’s best rushing attack save the option-oriented military academies. Combined with the usual stingy defense, the Utes likely will win 10 games in the regular season for the first time since 2019.
Although not perfect, the timing is right for Whittingham to walk away and enjoy life as a doting grandfather and an ambassador to the program. The only negatives, aside from taking a drastic pay cut, are not making the playoffs and the three-game losing streak to bitter rival BYU.
Utah needs to beat Kansas, which is 5-6, this week and then have several dominoes fall its way to play for the Big 12 championship. As for the losses to his alma mater, after losing in Provo last month, Whittingham pointed out BYU started the streak after the Utes had won nine straight games starting in 2010.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.