Kyle Whittingham talks about ability to adapt through multiple eras of college football
Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham saw a lot throughout his two decades at the helm of the Utes. College football changed quite a bit since he took over.
In this day and age of the transfer portal and NIL, it’s vastly different from when Whittingham led a Mountain West Utah team.
“First of all, it’s not trending towards paying players, we are paying players.” Whittingham said. “That’s in place. I’ve been in this profession a long time, and you talk about four, five years ago we couldn’t give them a ride to the dormitory or a slice of pizza to what’s going on now, it’s incredible.
“And there’s more change to come. We’re not done yet. I promise you that. Not by a long shot. There’s big changes on the horizon.”
Whittingham saw plenty of days before NIL was a big factor in recruiting, the portal and college athletics in general. But if you don’t get on the train, you’re going to be left behind.
“But the bottom line is it doesn’t matter whether you love NIL, transfer portal, hate it, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got to embrace it,” Whittingham said. “Because if you don’t, if you don’t adapt and update with the times, you’re going to get left behind and you’re going to be eliminated.”
Kyle Whittingham embracing changes in college football
If you can’t adapt, you might be left wondering where it all went wrong. Whittingham doesn’t want to be one of those coaches.
“So I think our program has done a very good job of embracing the changes,” he said. “I think we’ve had really good portal success as far as if you look at who we’ve lost and who we gained, our net result is very good in that regard. Our NIL, we’re competitive right now in that space. Always trying to get more resources. But the bottom line is, like I said, you have to adapt, you have to change with the times; otherwise, you’re not going to be able to compete.”
But Whittingham, who won Pac-12 titles with Utah in 2021 and ‘22 to show he’s still got it, isn’t sure when he’ll step down. At 64 years old, Whittingham appears fresh and Utah is certainly one of the favorites in the Big 12 in 2024.
“As to when that happens, that’s a great question,” Whittingham said. “I take it day by day. I’m as excited and enthused about the season as I’ve ever been. A lot of that is the excitement about going into a new conference, the new challenge, the new opportunity.
“But it’s just going to be a day-by-day process. And I’m not getting any younger, but at the same time I feel I’ve got a lot of energy right now.”
In the only head coaching job of his career, Whittingham is 162-79 overall as a head coach, including three conference titles and a career-best No. 2 AP Poll ranking at the end of the year in 2008.