Kyle Whittingham has yet to coach a real snap as head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, but he’s got plenty of experience under his belt.
Whittingham has been around the college football game for quite some time. He was the head coach of the Utah Utes for 22 seasons, starting in 2004. Before that, his assistant coaching career had spanned 20 seasons, so there may be few coaches left in college football more qualified to talk about the state of things than he.
And the state of things is messy. For all the positives that conference expansions, NIL deals, revenue sharing and a seemingly always-open transfer portal have brought, two negatives have cropped up.
To keep things in perspective, just a few months ago, Texas A&M was fighting the NCAA to allow a player who had bet on his own team, Brendan Sorsby, to play in 2026. The California Golden Bears are a part of the ACC.
It’s topsy-turvy, but Whittingham has a bold idea that he believes could fix the sport.
“I think it’s got to be a NFL minor league model where we have a salary cap and the players are employees,” Whittingham told Rich Eisen on Monday when asked how he’d use a magic wand to fix college football (h/t On3). “I think, as distasteful as some of that is, I don’t think there’s any other way that’s better than that. And, right now, it’s out of control. We’re going to have probably a dozen teams in the next recruiting cycle with $50 million rosters.”
