Kyle Whittingham grabbed headlines today when commenting about the rivalry between Ohio State and that team up north. The new head coach in Ann Arbor said he doesn't believe in hatred but emphasizes intensity when it comes to the greatest rivalry in sport. Ohio State fans shouldn't be fooled by this smoke screen from a coach with plenty of experience in bitter rivalries.
Some Ohio State fans are thinking this kind of talk from a head coach shows he doesn't understand The Game and THE rivalry. That this means Kyle Whittingham is doomed to fail against Ohio State. Let me tell you that is not the case. Whittingham coached 21 seasons at Utah, and it's well documented that he got his start after two years under Buckeye legend Urban Meyer. He learned about rivalries from a man who never refers to his rival by their actual name and is as proud of his 7-0 record as he is of his three national championships.
Whittingham isn't showing a misunderstanding of the rivalry, nor is he actually trying to take the high road. The new coach of UM has a track record all his own in top-tier rivalries. The Holy War between BYU and Utah is one of the top rivalries in college football. Coach Whittingham knows Ohio State fans lean into the hatred of the rivalry between the Buckeyes and Wolverines. His comment isn't about downplaying hate, but about passively aggressively saying he's above his foe. The dismissiveness of his rival is much more at home in Ann Arbor than it would be in Columbus.
The Buckeye mindset is the one that Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel espoused, of proving your worth on the field in a rivalry to win it. Kyle Whittingham's is one of dismissal and that his rivals are perpetually beneath him. It goes back to his time in the rivalry game between BYU and Utah.
Like many UM coaches who got their starts in Ohio, Whittingham played for BYU in the LaVell Edwards Era and turned coat to go up north. His dismissive attitude toward his rivals was obvious when Utah was in the Pac-12 and BYU was an Independent. During that time, from 2011 through 2023, the Utes, from the top down, believed continuing their rivalry game was beneath them and that they were out of their foe's league.
So much so that they canceled the Holy War in 2014 and 2015 to seek out better competition. They ironically ducked their rivalry game against BYU (much like UM would use COVID to duck Ohio State in 2020) by playing an even lesser program in those seasons. They played and beat Brady Hoke and Jim Harbaugh's UM teams in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Don't expect much different from UM during Whittingham's time. Last season, leading up to the annual Holy War against BYU, Whittingham refused to answer any questions about BYU freshman phenom quarterback Bear Bachmeier, claiming he didn't talk about other teams' quarterbacks and only wished to speak about his own. This was despite him providing comments about opposing quarterbacks in almost every other game the Utes played.
A new head coach saying hate in a rivalry game is beneath him, ducking his epic rivalry games, needling and disrespecting them in every passive-aggressive and wimpy way possible to maintain the superior air, even when the facts don't justify it, is what coaches of that team up north do.
That's who they are, whether that's in Salt Lake City or Ann Arbor. They'll do all that and fight like a rat caught in a trap (or a wolverine caught cheating). Cartoon villainy, history of cheating, and classic UM antics aside, that team up north will be dangerous at noon in Columbus, Ohio, on November 28th.
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