When it comes to the Michigan football program, everything feels irrelevant, except for the decision about what happens to Kyle Whittingham.
At this point, that's the only question left to be answered in the 2026 Michigan football season. The Wolverines have three games left, but outside of the Ohio State game, they mean less than nothing.
No one cares about this team getting to six wins. Hell, if it does, Michigan should decline the bowl berth and start the work of rebuilding this team for next season.
Michigan football was put in a tough spot because it had to fire Sherrone Moore last December. It was an awful time to hire a head coach, and the Wolverines made a huge error. There are even reports that they ignored warning signs along the way.
None of that matters now. The only thing that does is what happens next, and here are four reasons why keeping Kyle Whittingham can't be an option, and why he should have been fired right along with Jason Beck.
Whittingham didn't want to fire Jason Beck
You can read between the lines that Whittingham didn't want to make this move. He said as much on Saturday night. This move was forced on him.
With the offense not scoring a single point in the first half of the past three home games, how in the world could Whittingham think Beck could continue? The 2026 Michigan offense is the worst in program history, and it's not close.
Hell, it makes the 2024 Michigan football team look like the "Greatest Show on Turf."
Ok, that might be exaggerating, but I never thought any Michigan offense could be worse than the 2024 team, and yet, here we are, with a five-star quarterback, two NFL-caliber wide receivers, multiple NFL players on the offensive line, and a team that won nine games last season.
No coaching staff in Michigan history, which was led by Kyle Whittingham, has ever done less with more.
Washed up plain and simple
The head coach is going through the motions. He's not even communicating on the headset most of the time. He just stands there, staring off into space. Late in the fourth quarter, before a fourth down for Michigan football, Whittingham did not have a soul around him. It's hard to act that disinterested.
I get that he might not be an "offensive coach," but man, the school is paying you $8 million a year, so you'd think you'd at least pretend to care.
This is part of what Michigan was warned about. Whittingham isn't the same guy that he used to be. The fact that Utah paid him $13 million to go away makes a ton of sense now.
Michigan needs to pay him whatever it takes now to do the same.
And It should have happened yesterday.
Kyle Whittingham doesn't understand Michigan
After Whittingham downplayed the Michigan State game, before watching his team get pushed around by the worst team in the Big Ten, there really is no reason for Whittingham to coach another game for the Wolverines.
The buyout is going to be ridiculous, whether he is fired after game nine or game 12. My reaction when Beck was fired, was that Michigan fired the wrong person.
If Beck had been fired after the Minnesota game, maybe it would have meant something. There was still time at that point to salvage the season. Now, it's meaningless.
The Wolverines never treated the Michigan State game with the seriousness that it needed. Hugh Jackman was their motivation, for goodness sake. You shouldn't need Jon Jansen coming in during the week to tell you how important it is to beat Michigan State. You have to know that on day one.
Just like you need to know that Michigan beating Ohio State is life and death for the Michigan football head coach. At least that's how it should feel. That's how it should be treated.
Whittingham will treat it with the urgency of getting to grandmother's house for afternoon brunch. Maybe the guy will get excited for some hard candies and baked goods, because football certainly doesn't get his blood pumping anymore.
No answers
From the first game of the season against Western Michigan, it was clear Whittingham was in over his head. This isn't the Big 12. This isn't Utah. This is Michigan, and he wasn't prepared.
Another year isn't going to change that.
Whittingham didn't hire any coaches with Big Ten or SEC experience. Like Jason Beck, his arrogance is what did him in.
Beyond that, the game has passed him by. Just listen to him talk for five minutes. It's astounding that he was even hired. We all bought into the track record, but fans and analysts didn't sit in on the interviews.
Whittingham did a good job of keeping the roster together. Yet, with the money at his disposal and his reputation, plus the timing of it all, that wasn't that difficult. Mike Boynton did the same thing when Dusty May left for the Dallas Mavericks.
There's nothing on the field that's better than it was last season, outside of the defense, and that's Jay Hill, not Kyle Whittingham.
Everything else has been a disaster, right down to Whittingham saying one way to fix the current problems is with 2027 recruits and the transfer portal, as if he doesn't have a $40 million roster at his disposal.
What else is clear is that Whittingham doesn't have the answers. He has said as much during numerous press conferences. His only guarantee is that things will get fixed.
However, the truth is that the only way Michigan football gets fixed is by handing Whittingham his walking papers, which should have happened on Sunday, just like it did for Jason Beck.
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