It is honestly quite shocking it has even come to this. When the Michigan Wolverines fired their former head coach Sherrone Moore for cause, we all knew it might have been too late in the cycle to realistically land anyone extraordinary. Kenny Dillingham has said no, while Kalen DeBoer has another College Football Playoff game to attend to. Right now, Biff Poggi is serving as the interim head coach.
With it getting to the point of desperation, former Michigan star tight end Jake Butt shared his take.
"One thing that is continually overlooked and missed when talking about Biff Poggi as the potential next [head coach] is his network. Notice how he joked with [Nick] Saban on [College] GameDay earlier this year. That’s a real friendship. He is close with so many legends of the game, and his reputation alone would allow him to get on the phone with anyone he wanted."
Butt continued with his tweet by saying that Poggi is not just "your every day interim [head coach]"...
One thing that is continually overlooked and missed when talking about Biff Poggi as the potential next HC is his network. Notice how he joked with Saban on gameday earlier this year. That’s a real friendship. He is close with so many legends of the game, and his reputation alone…
— Jake Butt (@Jbooty88) December 21, 2025
If Michigan wants to hire a nice guy to grease the palms of every booster imaginable at any given banquet, then yes, Poggi should be the hire. While he was an excellent Catholic school head coach in Maryland, Poggi was awful leading the Charlotte 49ers over in The American. He may do better with greater resources in Ann Arbor, but this would be a total stop-gap hire to get Michigan through this.
Hiring Poggi could be like Mississippi State hiring Zach Arnett, or even UCLA hiring DeShaun Foster.
Biff Poggi might be more of a candidate than we expected at Michigan...
Oh, no question. Poggi would take the job incredibly seriously. He may be beloved in the building and on campus, but does Michigan want to win more than nine games next season? Poggi won only a combined six over two years at Charlotte! There are levels to this. Yes, Butt is right in that Poggi could conceivably put together a great staff. However, does he realize how late into the cycle we really are?
Overall, Michigan is going to have to take another good, hard look at the coaching candidate pool to find its next head coach. Even though he is on the wrong side of 65, Kyle Whittingham is both available and is a proven commodity from his stellar two-decade-long career leading the Utah Utes. Under his guidance, Utah was a close approximation to Michigan in terms of how the team was built.
Ultimately, Michigan needs to decide what exactly it wants out of its next head coach. If it wants something different, then Michigan should hire somebody totally outside of the Jim Harbaugh coaching tree. If it wants more of the same, then go right ahead with Poggi, or see if Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter wants to come back to the Big Ten this offseason.
For now, Michigan has a Citrus Bowl to get ready for when taking on the Texas Longhorns on Dec. 31.