It is truly ridiculous to be calling for Whitt‘s firing. The program is where it is because of him.
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Sorry to offend. A moment of passion. I’m not going to alter my remark. Discussion is healthy. College coaches make fantastic amounts of money based on performance. It’s true, the program is strong with minimal deleterious behavior. Is it heresy to suggest patternistic under performance might also be a condition of coaching. Is KW always above reproach? Other coaches have talent and contribute to programs as well. Will we lose another OC?
Take care.
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Here’s how I see it. I have long been a critic of Kyle‘s quirks. Those include a very conservative approach to the game, a long history of looking silly regarding the offensive coordinator position, an apparent disrespect for offense, and also losing big, high-profile, high-stakes games. These are all in the record. They are part of his body of work. I have run into severe criticism from Ute fans who cannot stand any criticism of Coach Whittingham. Still, I recognize that he has built the program using a particular formula, and that it is now a very solid program. There is no way he’s going to leave until he wants to, and so he is the horse we should plan on riding for the next three or four years. I think we will be pretty good, and I will be grateful for the good times that we will have.
But I will be very interested to see how we do under a different coach who accepts the good parts of Kyle‘s formula, and perhaps rejects those parts that have held us back, in my opinion. He does the best he can with the program he has and the talent he can attract. I think he is setting the stage for someone else to come along and take the program to the next level. I do not think we will get ever rise any higher than we did this season under him, but I hope I am mistaken.
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Yea I don’t blame a player to do what has been ingrained in him to do. I wish more players had fought to do what they were trained to do.
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I appreciate your points. This is what I was trying to say. No one wants to (or is going to) frog-march Kyle into early retirement, but we seem to be already lining Morgan up as the heir apparent to replace. There must be some excellent coaches (just like Urban) who look at our program and would love to participate in it’s ongoing success as well. Are we being perphaps shortsighted and insular out of habit and fear of the unknown?
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Last night was only the third bowl loss of the Whittingham era.
Last night was bad, as was the Pac-12 championship game. But those were two out of 14. Utah went 11-3 and won their division for the second year in a row. Utah went from a strong G-5 ten years ago to a Pac-12 contender.
Firing him now would be beyond ridiculous.
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Welcome to the new board, USS Utah!
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Agreed. Nobody is calling for him to be fired. At least I’m not. I did point out a mistake he made though, and fully expect he realizes it and learns from it. He doesn’t achieve the levels of success he has in life without regular reflection, introspection, and correction.
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Interesting fact, all of the Pac-12 runners up have gone on to lose their bowl games.
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I saw that last night, too, and it adds pretty strong evidence to the argument that the P12 is measurably not as good as other P5 conferences.
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I am however against Whitt retaining everyone on the staff right now. I personally have seen enough of the weak pass blocking under Harding. I can’t remember the last time our QB had consistent pockets for a season under Harding. He can teach run blocking, but the pass blocking has been weak for years now.
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Interesting comment in Oregon game about ‘self scouting’ and ‘breaking tendencies’. I feel like that is what bit us in both games. Whit seems to have always held onto the ‘this is our identity, this is what we do, just try to stop us’ mentality. Maybe that’s not fair but it seemed like through the season our offense was a lot more diverse and as we came down the stretch we just stopped spreading the ball and said here’s huntly and moss, just try to stop them. And as a result we were behind the chains all game in both. I wonder how much influence Whit had on the play calling down the stretch. Wouldnt surprise me if he shortened the leash on Andy.
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And when he gets in that mode, everyone in the stadium and watching on TV knows when it’s going to be a handoff to Moss. And generally its a futile attempt up the middle.
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Yeah I hate to say it but I was just cringing on almost every down because it was it was just such plain vanilla football. I’m watching enviously all these other bowl games and wondering what might have been. We have the players, i think all the bs about effort is lame. Coaches should own this one, period. I think Huntly’s comments about vaca were just him trying to own it for the coaches, and its pretty unfortunate. Maybe the O-line could have played better but again its a coaching thing to realize pressure is coming and throw a bunch of quick outs and bubble screens. Hell even and old fashion option like they ran with some success against us.
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Yep, watching Minnesota today showed an underdog team that came to play and got it done.
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Best comment I have read. I have been searching for something to bring closure on my thoughts for the end of this season and I think you nailed it. Whitt drank, poured and then DUI’d the team into the end of the season.
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Those who want Whitt out should get what they deserve. Mean reversion is real. Ask your buddies in Provo.
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Don’t confuse criticism of an obvious mistake with wanting to fire the man though, @Duhwayne. I haven’t really read any posts calling for Whit to be fired. I definitely don’t want him gone, but I do want him to get over the hump with the next iteration and win the CCG.
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Good post. In fairness to Whitt, he has never had a team this talented playing in a P5 conference. Like everyone else in the program he is learning how to behave at this level. That may explain his unusually enthusiastic comments about the 2019 team. That may not have hurt but it really couldn’t have helped.
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Agreed Duhwayne. Plenty of Zoobish comments made about firing Whitt. I believe they are the same folks who bailed on BYU and became bandwagon Ute fans.
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