{"id":669331,"date":"2026-03-20T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669331\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:36:18","slug":"michigans-kyle-whittingham-very-similar-to-coach-schembechler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669331\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan’s Kyle Whittingham ‘very similar to Coach Schembechler’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two old sayings in Michigan football<\/a><\/strong> are displayed prominently around the team facility: \u2018Those Who Stay Will Be Champions\u2019 and \u2018The Team, The Team, The Team.\u2019 Both were coined by the former late head coach, Bo Schembechler<\/strong> (1969-89), the winningest coach in program history whose name happens to be on the building, \u2018Schembechler Hall.\u2019<\/p>\n

New head coach Kyle Whittingham<\/a><\/strong> didn\u2019t come to Ann Arbor as a \u2018Michigan Man,\u2019 with ties to the university, but neither did Schembechler back in 1969 (in fact, Schembechler was a coach at Ohio State earlier in his career). Best believe Whittingham was watching from afar, though \u2014 when he wasn\u2019t going 3-0 against the Wolverines as the head coach of Utah, with two wins in Ann Arbor \u2014\u00a0and understands the rich history and tradition the program has.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, this is everything that I expected and hoped it would be,\u201d Whittingham said on the \u2018In The Trenches\u2019 podcast. \u201cYou see Michigan football on TV, and you hear about the tradition and the history, but to come here and first hand be able to see for yourself, it\u2019s palpable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history and tradition here are thick, and I\u2019m not here to change or tamper with that in any way, shape or form. We\u2019re going to embrace it, and our job here is to try to make this football team and this program as good as we possibly can and as competitive as we can. So far, it\u2019s been great to work with these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 66-year-old with an old-school flair, Whittingham\u2019s coaching style isn\u2019t all that different from what Michigan has had in the past with Schembechler or some of his disciples such as Gary Moeller<\/strong>, Lloyd Carr <\/strong>or Jim Harbaugh<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I can tell you, it\u2019s very similar to Coach Schembechler,\u201d Whittingham explained. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a fan of his, growing up watching it very closely. I read the book, Bo\u2019s Lasting Lessons by John Bacon, so I\u2019ve really got a lot of what we do culturally and philosophies and beliefs are right in line with Coach Schembechler. There are far more similarities than differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe signage in the building is awesome. It\u2019s like, hey, I read about this, and hear it is right in front of me. So, I would say that it\u2019s going to be very, very similar to what Coach Schembechler did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittingham spent the last 32 seasons at Utah, including the previous 21 as the program\u2019s head coach. He\u2019s been in college coaching since his days as a graduate assistant at alma mater BYU in 1985, and hasn\u2019t made the jump to the NFL at any point despite receiving interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I just love the opportunity to help shape and mold the lives of these young men, and if all we do is make them better football players, we fail,\u201d the Michigan coach said. \u201cWe want to develop the entire person, and at the NFL level, that doesn\u2019t really happen that way. They\u2019re pretty well grown men and set in their ways. But these guys, at this age, are still very receptive to teaching them things and helping them prepare for life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was in the NFL for many years as a coach, and so he had seen both sides of it. And, at the time, he said that there\u2019s no question collegiate football is the way to go. Now, with NIL and the portal and all that, it\u2019s getting a little more complicated, and maybe the NFL is a little more \u2014\u00a0I don\u2019t know what the term is \u2014\u00a0consistent. College football right now is in the state where it\u2019s got to continue to change because it\u2019s not sustainable, where we are right now. So, we\u2019ll see where it ends up and where everyone lands in collegiate football.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the real reason is to hopefully change lives for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, so good. The reception from Michigan\u2019s players have been positive, and they\u2019re off to a strong start, by all accounts, in building for the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got done with the winter conditioning phase,\u201d Whittingham noted. \u201cIt was an \u2018A+\u2019 from our perspective as coaches, with the work and the effort that players put in. Our strength numbers were way up. Their attitude, their willingness was phenomenal. So, I would say, without a doubt it was a success, and we\u2019re ready to go into spring ball now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two old sayings in Michigan football are displayed prominently around the team facility: \u2018Those Who Stay Will Be…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":669332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-669331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116262010136310890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}