Speaking publicly for the first time since announcing his decision to return for his 21st season at the helm of the Utah football program, Kyle Whittingham shared part of the reason why he decided to come back.
Whittingham has long maintained, as recently as a couple weeks ago, that as long as he has energy and passion to coach, that he will continue on with his career.
But he admitted to ESPN’s Pete Thamel that if Utah’s 2024 season went differently, that he might have called it a career.
The Utes entered the 2024 season projected to win the Big 12 behind quarterback Cam Rising. But after Rising suffered multiple injuries and missed the majority of the season, the year fell apart — especially offensively.
At one point, Utah lost seven straight games, and finished at 5-7 — just the third losing season of the Whittingham era. Any Big 12 championship hopes went up in smoke when Rising was injured for the second time in Utah’s 27-19 loss to Arizona State in early October.
“I mean, it was something that we didn’t do a good enough job of overcoming and so it motivated me very much so to get ready for this season and get a team ready that is going to be extremely competitive and we’ve got a lot of things going for us,” Whittingham said. “We haven’t played anybody yet, but I’m excited to watch these guys play on August 30th.”
There would be no ride into the sunset for Whittingham after that season.
“I couldn’t step away on that note. It was too frustrating and too disappointing.” He added: “Had we won the championship last year, I might not be sitting here,” he told Thamel.
In a scrum with reporters later in the day, the longtime Ute coach repeated that he couldn’t end his storied career on a losing season.
“I couldn’t stomach going out on that, with that season, as frustrating as it…
Source link : https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/07/09/why-utah-coach-kyle-whittingham-returned/
Author :
Publish date : 2025-07-09 23:14:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
