Melissa Whittingham Kent wrestled with her emotions as she walked out of Rice-Eccles Stadium on the night of Nov. 22, her children dressed in red and black and waddling beside her.
She knew it might be the last game her father, Kyle Whittingham, ever coached inside the stadium that she had grown up in.
“I was about to burst into tears,” Melissa said.
But she felt she had to leave early.
“We’re a very superstitious family,” she said.
The Utes were down by 12 points to Kansas State as the clock ticked down in the fourth quarter. Maybe a change of scenery would make a difference, Melissa thought. So she and her sister, Kylie, walked with the children to Guardsman Way and inside the Utes’ football facility.
As soon as they turned the game on a television in their father’s office, Utah safety Tao Johnson intercepted a pass and bolted 99 yards, flipping the momentum of the game.
“It was obviously good luck that we were in there, so I had to stay in there to watch the game,” Melissa said.
The Utes went on to win that game, as they have 176 other times under Kyle Whittingham. His children and grandchildren cheered him on from inside an office filled with photographs and memories, a place that has become a second home for them.
“My kids think that they can run into the football facility and own the place,” Melissa said.
Over the last 21 years, the Whittingham name has been synonymous with Utah football. It has been woven into their family identity. It might seem as if it is in their blood.
(Brady Whittingham) Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham, third from the right on the front row, sits with his family on July 27, 2018.
But as Whittingham prepares to step down as the school’s head coach after the Las Vegas Bowl, there is a chance the ultimate Utah man is wearing a different school’s colors next fall. On Friday, ESPN reported that the Michigan Wolverines were targeting the 66-year-old Whittingham as their next head coach.
“Who knows?” Whittingham said when asked directly if he was retiring earlier this month. “We’ll see.”
The power of staying
Urban Meyer had already decided to leave the University of Utah for the Florida Gators when he made his last, and perhaps most important, recruiting visit for the Utes.
He brought Utah players Steve Fifita, Morgan Scalley, Spencer Toone, Dave Revill and others to help make the pitch.
Their goal: to keep Kyle Whittingham from taking the head coaching job at BYU, his alma mater and the Utes’ most hated rival.
“I recruited him for a couple hours,” Meyer told The Salt Lake Tribune of that day.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kyle Whittingham watches as Urban Meyer speaks at a news conference before the 2005 Fiesta Bowl.
Sitting in his living room, Whittingham pointed at each player one by one, asking them why he should stay, as they sat in a circle.
“I remember it being this intense, very intimate time,” Fifita said. “I didn’t say anything until he asked me, ‘What do you think?’
“I was like, ‘Hey, I love you, coach. I want you to stay.’”
Days later, Meyer was pacing in his Florida hotel room when Whittingham phoned to share the news of his decision
“I teared up, and I was like ‘thank god.’ Meyer said. “My dream was to see Utah become what it became. It’s because of Kyle.”
Whittingham’s decision to stay put — while hundreds of coaching jobs turned over across the country — changed the Utes forever. He guided Utah to three championships in the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences, put dozens of players in the NFL and won three national coach of the year awards along the way.
Now, at age 66, Whittingham is leaving the Utes and facing likely his biggest career decision since he decided to succeed Meyer.
“I’m a free agent,” the coach said. “I’m in the transfer portal.”
‘Family into work and work into family’
In his early years on the job, Whittingham’s four children would run around the old Ute practice facility, causing youthful mayhem, while he commanded his team from the sideline.
During the holidays, the Whittingham kids spent Christmas in fancy hotel rooms, unwrapping presents before bowl games.
On Thursdays, the team would cater meals and the Whittingham children would eat with the players, coaches and, of course, their father.
“I loved being around the facility, going and seeing him at work as an elementary school kid,” former Ute Alex Whittingham said. “The players that were always fun to be around and hang out with in the locker room.”
Alex followed his father into coaching and is now the defensive line coach with the Kansas City Chiefs.
(Whittingham family) Former Utah player Alex Whittingham at Arrowhead Stadium with his mother, Jamie, before a Kansas City Chiefs game in 2018.
“It kind of led me to where I am out here today,” Alex said. “I saw what his life was like. I wanted that for myself. I wanted that for my kids and my family to have these kinds of similar experiences.”
Melissa’s 8-year-old son, Jude, might one day follow a similar path. One time, she needed a babysitter, so she dropped Jude off at Utah’s practice field. The legendary coach watched over his grandson and practice at the same time. Like his grandfather, he became a coach on the sideline.
“He was engrossed in the whole practice,” Melissa said. “I thought he’d be goofing off on the side or running around doing something else. He would be on the sidelines next to my dad coaching every game if he could.”
Football and family have become one.
“That is partly why I have such fond memories of growing up with him as a coach, because the effort was still there to be involved in our lives,” Alex said. “I think he’s done as good a job as there is at bringing family into work and work into family.”
“Cousins, aunts, uncles and siblings, we’ve all gone to the Utah games for 20-plus years,” Melissa said. “We see each other every week during football season. It’s always been a family affair.”
That has given Whittingham comfort, especially during difficult seasons like the one the Utes endured in 2024.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Whittingham stands with his family after a game in 2024.
“He does kind of agonize over those small failures they may have throughout the year,” Alex said. “And mom [Jamie Whittingham] has really just wanted to help him let it go.”
It’s a factor that could push Whittingham toward retirement, his children said.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” he said, “but when you’ve got coaching in your blood, it doesn’t just go away.”
A model of consistency
If Eric Weddle closes his eyes, he can still picture his head coach repeating his same morning routine.
In Whittingham’s office is an elliptical that he works out on every morning, as he overlooks the Salt Lake skyline, Rice-Eccles Stadium and the Wasatch Front.
The Ute coach will work out while completing his New York Times crossword puzzle every morning, Weddle said. He’ll then make his way to the weight room for a lift.
“For decades, he’s been doing that,” Weddle said. “You get to a certain point of your life where routines become who you are, and that’s who he is.
“He’s just got those weird, quirky routines.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kyle Whittingham embraces defensive back Eric Weddle on senior day in 2006.
Whittingham is, indeed, a creature of habit.
Former Utah defensive coordinator Gary Andersen would race Whittingham in their weekly jog around the U.’s campus. Somehow, Andersen said, the final 30 seconds always turned into a sprint to the finish line.
“Every day, we’d have that 12 o’clock workout,” Andersen said. “We’d have one day on the treadmill, one day on the stair stepper, and then go out for that jog around one day around campus.
“The consistency that we had helped the players. I think that helped the program.”
Whittingham’s personal consistency extended to how he ran the Ute program.
Former Utah offensive lineman Zane Beadles, who went on to play nine seasons in the NFL and was the Utah head coach’s first commit, remembers how Whittingham made the freshman sit in the back of film meetings, while the upperclassmen were placed in the front.
“The guys down in the front earned more,” Beadles said. “If you’re in the back, you want to become one of these guys in the front. There’s a path to it, but you’re the one that has to put in the work.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kyle Whittingham on the sidelines early in his coaching career.
As time went on, Whittingham had to get creative to keep his players focused during meetings and film sessions, keeping them off their smartphones.
Even if he was fibbing.
“Every year at the first meeting, he would stand up and say there was a phone tracker on the seats,” Terrell Burgess, a former Utah defensive back from 2016-19, said. “He’d say, ‘OK, anybody that still has their phone in the meeting, we can figure it out right now, and we’ll post it on the screen.
“Within 10 seconds, all the rookies that had their phones, they would get up and walk out.”
When traveling, former Utah athletics director Chris Hill knew never to be late to the bus for road games.
“If we’re going to leave, I always would get there 15 minutes early and get on the bus,” Hill said, “because I’d know he’d leave his family and coaches and anybody if they weren’t there on time.”
That’s why some wonder whether a man who has kept such consistent routines for so long would really say goodbye to the game and the work he loves.
“A lot of me wants to say, ‘Relax. Take some time. Catch your breath.’ But my competitive juices are there as well,” he said on ESPN 700.
What’s next?
Before leaving for another Chiefs practice earlier this month, Alex received a call from his father.
“He’s been mulling it over since the Kansas game,” the coach’s son said. “Between him and my mom, there’s been a lot of conversations and discussions. Before I went out to practice, he called and told me about the decision to step down. I’m still processing it.”
Melissa said breaking the news to her son Jude was the hardest part.
“My kids think that they can run into the football facility and own the place,” Melissa said. “It’s gonna be weird being like, ‘Oh no, we can’t go visit Grandpa at his office anymore.’”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Whittingham celebrates his last win in Rice-Eccles Stadium, a 51-47 win in November.
In the short term, Whittingham and his family will be able to enjoy one last rodeo in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve against Nebraska for his 178th and final win with Utah.
“I want him to feel like, ‘Oh, yeah, I fulfilled my career,” Melissa said. “Maybe he’ll step down after the Las Vegas Bowl and be like ‘I feel complete.’”
Over the last week, Melissa and the family have been reminiscing over pictures from the years. Tears have been shed. And the reality of Kyle Whittingham not being the head coach of the Utes has started to set in.
“It’ll be a life adjustment for all of us,” Melissa said.
A day before Whittingham’s announcement, former Ute defensive coordinator Gary Andersen sent his former boss a picture of them celebrating in the confetti after the 2009 Sugar Bowl, when the Utes defeated Alabama.
“I sent him a picture the night before, and just texted ‘Those were great times we had together,’” Andersen said. “I don’t know why I sent that then.”
“I think if we all look back, the effects that we had on kids outweighs the wins and the losses,” Andersen said. “I guarantee that’s what he takes the most pride in.”
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kyle Whittingham and defensive coordinator Gary Andersen celebrate after the Utes defeated Alabama in the 75th Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan.2, 2009.
Whittingham might be ending this chapter, but his next move remains uncertain and unwritten.
“I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” he said last Thursday. “Somebody once told me that every year that goes by when you’re a coach, 10% of the fan base starts to hate you.
“So after 20 years ... it was a good run. It was a good run, and I’ll say it one more time. I didn’t want to be that hanger-on-er that people just got sick of.”
Those who support him have different ideas of what his future could look like.
“Selfishly, I’d love to get him out here to Kansas City as a senior analyst,” Alex said, while chuckling. “Just talking to him, he still has that fire — he’s still got some years left, if my mom [Jamie Whittingham] lets him.”
Melissa hopes he opts to become a full-time grandpa and with a side gig as an assistant coach to Jude’s Olympus Youth League team.
But even she doesn’t know what’s truly next.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Whittingham, center, sits at the judging table with his granddaughter Remi Kent, left, during the Utah gymnastics preview at the Jon M. Huntsman Center, on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025.
“I think he just doesn’t feel very old,” she said. “I think he feels young. I think he feels like if the right opportunity arose, he could keep going.
“I would just say, I hope it’s an hour plane ride away or less if that happens.”
So what could be next? It could be years of smiles and laughter from his grandkids. The sound of college football on the TV in the background, while he throws a pigskin in the backyard with his grandson.
Or it could be the hard grind of another college football. Recruiting new players, game planning for opposing quarterbacks. Mornings filled with his daily lift, crossword puzzles and elliptical.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” he said, “but when you’ve got coaching in your blood, it doesn’t just go away.”
Something they all agree on, however, is that Kyle’s legacy with the Utes is forever cemented.
“He’s a Utah man through and through,” Melissa said.
Even if he might not be one forever.