There's not just a lot of turmoil in Ann Arbor; there are a lot of questions nationally about the state of Michigan football and how this Kyle Whittingham marriage will either continue or dissolve.
Following the inexplicable loss to a bad Michigan State team, the national media is immersed in all things Wolverines, and the embarrassments on the field have turned into talking points off the field.
Fox Sports analyst Brady Quinn has seen the maize and blue play quite often in person, and the Wolverines have devolved from his first game of the year, when Oklahoma came to town. Quinn has a theory as to why the pairing between Michigan and Whittingham haven't worked, and his take is that the head coach never fully bought into his new gig.
He shared
his thoughts on Two Pros and a Cup of Joe.
"Reports are coming out, he didn't ever even move to Ann Arbor, he's renting a place," Quinn said. "This is leading me to believe that maybe this was like one of those, all right, I'll go out there and try, but if things go that bad, you know, basically I'll just, I'll get canned, and I'll get the golden parachute of the they'll buy me out, and I can just now go off into retirement with a little bit more money than what I intended. Maybe that was the direction of what he was essentially doing, is saying like, how can I add on to my retirement without really changing much? I'll just go rent a place in Ann Arbor, go coach there for a year, and then I'll get fired at the end of the season for basically burning the thing to the ground."
Ultimately, was getting Whittingham, who had played at BYU and spent 21 years as the head coach at Utah, the right move for Michigan? Obviously, it's not working out nine games into the season, but going off script, Quinn believes, may have been the wrong move. After all, many of the best head coaches in recent program history have had ties to Ann Arbor one way or another.
"It's funny though, it's like, if you really go back and you look at how Michigan's really wanted to hire, they've always say a Michigan man," Quinn said. "You always hear a Michigan man, Michigan man. Like, there is something to that. You have to understand the dynamics of what that job entails. It's not like any job. And I never, I guess I should say this: I don't fault schools for going back to bring in a guy who's been there before because they have a much better understanding of the landscape."
The last coach who struggled this mightily in his first year was Rich Rodriguez, who had great success at his alma mater, West Virginia. But he came to replace Lloyd Carr, and it never worked out for RichRod in Ann Arbor. Brady Hoke had early success, and he certainly got the rivalries after having been the defensive line coach under Carr's 1997 national championship team. When he fizzled out, Michigan brought in Jim Harbaugh, who was a star quarterback after growing up in the shadow of The Big House with his father, Jack, coaching under Bo Schembechler.
Speaking of Schembechler, not all have to have those Michigan ties. Schembechler was hired from Miami (Ohio) after having coached under Woody Hayes at Ohio State. His successor, Gary Moeller, played at OSU, but served as a longtime assistant under Schembechler, as had Lloyd Carr.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Brady Quinn questions Kyle Whittingham's commitment to Michigan football
