{"id":374782,"date":"2025-12-28T21:32:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T21:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374782\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T21:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T21:32:12","slug":"kyle-whittingham-addresses-future-of-michigan-rb-coach-tony-alford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374782\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Whittingham addresses future of Michigan RB coach Tony Alford"},"content":{"rendered":"

During his introductory press conference, new Michigan<\/a> head coach Kyle Whittingham<\/a> discussed the future of RB coach Tony Alford<\/a>. Whether or not Alford is back or not, Whittingham has a lot of respect for him and his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTony Alford, tremendous football coach,\u201d Whittingham said during his introductory press conference<\/a>. \u201cI was blessed at Utah<\/a>. His brother Aaron Alford, before he passed away, worked for us for several years. So I told the Alford family, great family. And Tony, you know, like I said, I got a ton of respect for him and we\u2019ll see how things work out in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alford has spent two years at Michigan as the running backs coach, both under former coach Sherrone Moore<\/a>. He was in the same position at Ohio State<\/a> from 2015-23 under Urban Meyer<\/a> and Ryan Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Funny enough, Whittingham was a coach at Utah under Meyer before taking over. So, there\u2019s certainly a connection between the coaches.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s any indication, Alford could be a holdover for Whittingham\u2019s staff in 2026. The new Wolverines head coach didn\u2019t reveal any changes to the staff yet, due to it still being bowl season. But it\u2019ll have his type of flavor and could include current Michigan staffers.<\/p>\n

Going into this new job, Whittingham actually admitted he didn\u2019t know if he was done coaching. After stepping down at Utah, the Michigan job immediately opened with Moore\u2019s firing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be able to be in this position. Twenty-one years at Utah. Stepped down a couple weeks ago. Wasn\u2019t sure if I was finished or not. I still have a lot left in the tank,\u201d Whittingham said. \u201cYou can count on one hand, the amount of schools that if they called, I would listen and I would be receptive to what they had to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan was one of those schools, definitely a top five job in the country, without a doubt. So, when the ball started rolling, and the more I learned about Michigan, the more excited I got. And I\u2019m just elated to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittingham signed<\/a> a five-year contract with Michigan worth an average of $8.2 million per year. Whittingham\u2019s contract is 75% guaranteed. His 2026 salary is expected to be $8 million.<\/p>\n

While Whittingham is far older than many of the other coaches who were signed during this hiring cycle, he\u2019s also far more experienced. Whittingham was the head coach at Utah from 2005-25. During his impressive tenure, he guided the Utes to a 177-88 overall record and three conference championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his introductory press conference, new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham discussed the future of RB coach Tony…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,32692,398,396,397,99,183386],"class_list":{"0":"post-374782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-kyle-whittingham-78-provo","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tony-alford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}