Urban Meyer backs Kyle Whittingham as Michigan’s next elite coach

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Once upon a time, a new Michigan football head coach was an acolyte of the Ohio State head coach. History doesn't always repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

In 1969, a former Ohio State graduate student who coached under Woody Hayes was hired by then-athletic director Don Canham to take over a struggling Michigan football program, and the Bo Schembechler era went so well that even now, it's been difficult for the program to move away from it. After all, Jim Harbaugh played for Schembechler. His predecessor, Brady Hoke, was a Lloyd Carr acolyte, with Carr being a former Schembechler assistant.

Now, Michigan has a former Urban Meyer assistant, albeit from his time at Utah, in Kyle Whittingham as the team's 22nd head coach. And no one is more excited than Meyer himself.

Appearing on Wake Up Barstool, Meyer shared with Dave Portnoy why he's excited about Whittingham taking the job as well as more about the conversation they had before he did just that.

"This Kyle Whittingham thing, he called me one day, and he says, 'Hey, what do you think?'" Meyer said. "And I said, 'Are you kidding me?' You step down at Utah, and then we started talking about the Wolverines. And my comment was, and Dave, I think you know this, that yes, there's a rivalry, there's hatred, but there's never — you name someone that respects that school more than me and I'd probably argue with you. I have so much respect. Bo Schembechler was a friend. And the reason we worked so hard to beat their (expletive) is because we respected them so much. We worked on them every day, every day of our careers. 

"So when Kyle told me that, I said, 'Kyle, it's a no-brainer. You could win a national title there.' It's a hard job. I mean, he's going to be under scrutiny he's never been under before, never been under before at Utah. This is a blue-blood program. You can get any player you want. You have elite academics. You've got the challenges in recruiting that Northern schools have, but here's why the Wolverine nation should be ecstatic: he's a tough cat. That's a tough dude, man. 

"You're going to see when the Wolverines were the Wolverines of old, and like they were a couple of years ago. They were a line of scrimmage team that tackled really well, played physical, tough defense, and they controlled the line of scrimmage on offense. And that's what he is. And he's adapted well to the new era of players. That's the thing that, when he was my defense coordinator, he was firm, had high expectations, but he was never demeaning — never. The players respected him, and that's the No. 1 quality that he has."

Whittingham was introduced on Sunday in Orlando and shared that he remains close with Meyer. He says he's gone to him to give him counsel over staffing decisions, as well. So, with Ohio State still very much holding Meyer's allegiances, it will be interesting to see how he may shift now that he has a protege in Ann Arbor.

This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Urban Meyer says Kyle Whittingham can win a title at Michigan

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