In his first interview with the media since stepping down as Utah’s head coach last Friday, Kyle Whittingham addressed why now was the right time for him to walk away from the program he’s been in charge of for the past 21 seasons.
“Well, the program’s in a good place right now,” he said after practice Thursday. “As I’ve said many times after last season, it just didn’t sit right with anybody, particularly me, and so came back and fortunately we were able to get the ship righted and everything’s on track.
“Program, like I said, is in a good spot. Got good coaches, coach (Morgan) Scalley will come in and do a great job, got good players, so now is the time.”
Whittingham will coach his final game for Utah in the Dec. 31 Las Vegas Bowl vs. Nebraska.
“This team has been one of my favorite years. The team attitude, the leadership, the work ethic, just the personality and the feel, the vibe of the team is outstanding and having the chance to be around these guys one more month and go to battle one more time with them is something I wanted to do,” Whittingham said.
The future for Whittingham after he finishes his 266th game as head coach of the Utes is still up in the air. The language used in last Friday’s announcement was “stepping down,” not “retiring,” and moments after the decision was announced, multiple national reporters, including The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel, reported that Whittingham could pursue other coaching opportunities.
“Whittingham, 66, is not retiring, according to a source close to the coach, and may pursue other coaching opportunities,” Mandel wrote on X.
Per’s Whittingham’s latest contract with Utah, he would serve as a “Special Assistant to the Athletics Director” for two years following retirement. That position would pay him $3.45 million per year and Whittingham would not be required to provide more than 10 hours of consulting in a week.
But is Whittingham’s desire to coach “out of his system” and is he ready to step away from the sidelines completely?
“I don’t know if it’s ever out of your system. I mean it’s in your blood and so I don’t know about that,” he said. “That being said, I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but when you got the coaching in your blood, it just doesn’t go away.”
Asked if this was not a retirement, Whittingham responded, “Who knows? We’ll see. I’m just stepping down and step away and reevaluate things.”
As for what the process of deciding whether to pursue other opportunities or move into his special assistant role at Utah looks like, it’s pretty simple for Whittingham.
“If my phone rings, I answer it, I like who’s calling? Then we’ll see. Yeah, that’s pretty much the process,” Whittingham said.
Ultimately, Whittingham’s decision to step down seemed to come down to his feeling that now was the right time to transition the program over to Scalley.
Additionally, Whittingham said multiple times on Thursday that he didn’t want to “overstay his welcome” after 21 years in charge of the program.
“I’m a free agent. I’m in the transfer portal,” Whittingham said to laughs. “So yeah, it’s a different feel, but like I said, I’m at peace and I did not want to be that guy that overstayed his welcome and people just saying, ‘Hey, when’s this guy going to leave?’
“That was not my intention ever and I hope I didn’t do that. I’m sure with some people I did do that, but to me the timing is right.”
It’s still Whittingham’s team until after the Las Vegas Bowl. Aside from the players who have entered the transfer portal, Whittingham said Thursday that Utah has just three opt-outs so far for the New Year’s Eve bowl game — offensive tackle Spencer Fano, offensive tackle Caleb Lomu and defensive end Logan Fano, all of whom have declared for the 2026 NFL Draft.
Other than that, Whittingham is expecting everyone, including quarterback Devon Dampier, to play in the Las Vegas Bowl.
“As far as not playing in the game, I think that what we have right now is what we’re going to the game with. I hope so,” Whittingham said.
Utah, favored by 16.5 points against a Nebraska team that will be missing its starting quarterback and running back, has plenty of motivation to send Whittingham out with his 178th win at Utah.
“It means a lot to me. … That’s a coach that believed in me to come in here after being at New Mexico and just had full trust in me and the offense to do what we do and that’s just huge respect from him and just what he’s done for this program,” Dampier said.
“I got to finish well for him.”
While Whittingham’s post-Utah future is still unclear as of this week, the program’s future is Scalley, who was announced as Utah’s next head coach last Saturday.
Whittingham gave his full endorsement to Scalley, who played at Utah and coached for nearly two decades under Whittingham and now will lead the Utes starting in the 2026 season.
“He’s organized. He’s really good with Xs and Os. He’s really good at connecting with players. His culture ideas, my culture ideas align perfectly. We both have a lot of the same recruiting strategies and thoughts, evaluation-wise, how you navigate the portal, all that stuff,” Whittingham said.
“It’s very consistent and I think that there’s going to be far more similarities than change. Now he’ll put his own stamp on the program and make no mistake, but way back when I took over for Urban (Meyer) if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. We hung on to a lot of the stuff that Urban did here, but (Scalley) has been here a lot of years. He’s a Utah Man through and through, and so I think it’s going to be a good situation.”
Scalley is in the process of building his staff right now and he will be introduced as Utah’s head coach in a press conference on Jan. 6.