The Harley-Davidson motorcycle Kyle Whittingham rides is about as classic an American two-wheeler as it gets.
The approach Whittingham is taking to peel back the curtain on his new football program, storied-but-scandal-ridden Michigan, is anything but traditional.
It’s that mindset that’s at the center of a recent Wolverines football gathering.
Whittingham, working with his general manager, Dave Peloquin, and others in athletics administration, hosted the “Bleed Blue Summit” in mid-August with roughly 12 to 15 “stakeholders” in Michigan football.
Part Name, Image and Likeness program; part
pulling back the insular bubble around the football program.
Across three days, guests sat in on positional meetings, went through evaluative techniques with Michigan’s front-office staff and were present on the practice field. They dined with coaches and other staff members, discussed their own backgrounds — finance, tech, private-sector business — and the intersection of funding college rosters in the NIL/revenue-sharing era.
“It’s all Kyle Whittingham being a forward-thinker,” said Peloquin, a former top personnel executive at Notre Dame. “He’s really been adamant about taking this opportunity to evolve as a head coach, put together a good front office and challenged us all to think differently in some capacity.
“They have not tapped the network that is Michigan, really, in any significant capacity. We have to do a better job from a football standpoint to outreach those people, get them into the building, make them feel welcome. As coach says, ‘Be forward-thinkers on what’s happening.’”
Altius Sports Partners, which counts Michigan among the more than 50 college athletic departments with which it works in the revenue-generation space, sent company president Andrew Donovan to the "Bleed Blue Summit."
Mike Foguth, whose eponymous financial firm works directly with Michigan athletics as well as the Detroit Lions, also was among the guests.
When he got the invitation, Foguth didn’t hesitate to change his travel plans. Despite routine work with athletes and coaches, Foguth doesn’t ever recall an experience like this one.
A special teams walk-through with the Michigan coaches and players. Time with the strength and conditioning staff.
Tutorials on the scouting process, too. Full access to an intrasquad scrimmage.
“Once I saw the detail and what we were actually going to be doing there, I flew back early from a golf trip in New Jersey to make sure I didn’t miss,” Foguth told USA TODAY Sports. “I’d talked to the coaches some before, had golfed with Whit and spent time with him, but realizing they’re actually going to pull the curtain back of what it’s like from the moment an athlete walks through the doors of Schembechler Hall to the moment they get to the field; 95% of a ballplayer’s role is off the field and away from gameday.
“The feeling in that building with coach Whit and his staff is detail, structure, organization where everything is put together for a reason and purpose.”
Following 21 years as Utah’s head coach and more than three decades on the Utes’ staff, Whittingham is leaning into a personnel department with Midwest chops. Peloquin’s a veteran of more than 20 years in Notre Dame’s football program, working across four head coaches, and assistant general manager Berj Najarian owns NFL experience with the New England Patriots as well as time as Boston College’s chief of staff. Chase Ketterer is a former Notre Dame walk-on quarterback now working in the Wolverines' recruiting department.
After bringing in more than 40 newcomers in the transition from the fired Sherrone Moore to Whittingham, Michigan’s 2027 recruiting class sits No. 11 in the 247Sports Composite.
“I think that the front office we have is out of sight,” Whittingham told USA TODAY Sports last month at Big Ten Media Days. “We’ve got a ton of experience, (staff) that have been in some really good places, good situations. I thought they’ve done a masterful job of helping put the roster together.”
Assembling any power conference roster takes funding, and it’s that subject at the core of the "Bleed Blue Summit." Michigan officials told USA TODAY Sports they hope to keep the event’s exclusivity but envision it becoming an annual part of the program.
“I was a small piece of this, wherein I gave some perspective to where things sit relative to the PCSA (Protect College Sports Act) and helping those stakeholders understand not only what that means for NIL, but also for program revenue-generation perspective,” said Donovan, a former senior athletics administrator at Tennessee. “Our belief at Altius, one way or another, either through Congressional action or otherwise, is that the rev-share cap is going to increase. Institutions are going to be controlling dollars more directly that end up in athletes’ pockets.
“How do you really optimize departmental revenue generation?”
Jared Wangler runs Michigan’s Champions Circle, the school’s “fan-engagement” arm with more than $70 million in NIL deals since its 2021 inception.
He’s also a former Wolverines player who doesn’t remember ever seeing this type of event, nor does he shrink from the rising costs of college athletics.
“We’re in this window right now where these football rosters have far outstretched what universities have in revenue-sharing, where $21.3 million is the rev-share (per House Settlement terms), and football rosters are between $30 million and $45 million,” Wangler said. “Add in men’s basketball, women’s basketball, wrestling, softball …
“The tab grows pretty significantly. What I thought was most intriguing from the group was the mix of what can we do to be innovative to generate more revenue, really tying into how are we aggregating as many of our athlete-marketing assets that we can generate. How are we taking a 360-degree look and go into the marketplace to drive as much revenue that’s defensible if, say, the PCSA passes or House settlement gets expanded.
"It’s coach Whittingham and his staff trying to be forward-looking to lead Michigan into this next era.”
Sometimes, forward-thinking is as simple as opening the front door of your program.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kyle Whittingham is doing something Michigan football rarely does: Letting people in
