Whittingham, Florida Not a Fit
A lot of Ute football fans breathed a sigh of relief, eight days ago, when Florida football coach Urban Meyer announced he wasn’t resigning, after all.
The reason it affected Ute fans is that one of the first names to surface as a possible replacement was Ute coach Kyle Whittingham, who has won five bowl games in five years. He has also been named National Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association.
What if Florida wanted Whittingham, too?
When it wanted Meyer from Utah, it took him.
Tripling or quadrupling your salary and playing for national championships can do that.
Many have speculated Whittingham wouldn’t have gone to Florida even if offered the job; that he’s a “Utah” guy. Meyer was just passing through, and everybody knew it. Whittingham spent 14 years (Utah, BYU, CEU) as an assistant coach, as well as part of his youth, in Utah. Now he has been another five years as head coach.
While that may be true, odds are that Florida wouldn’t have preferred Whittingham.
That’s not to say he isn’t a successful coach. His 47-17 record says he is. It’s that unless several others had turned down the job, Florida wouldn’t likely go to the same source twice. With arguably the top program in the nation, the Gators have their pick of coaches. They could get almost anyone. It’s doubful Florida would want to make Utah its farm team, even with former U. president Bernie Machen now at Gainesville.
Besides, many Florida fans would be indignant. Why not go after a Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC coach? Or for that matter, why not go after Gary Patterson at TCU? He has two Mountain West titles in the last five years, compared to one for Whittingham.
That’s not to say Whittingham isn’t as good or better than those coaches. Or that he will necessarily stay forever at Utah. If offered, I could see him being interested in the USC or Oregon jobs, especially as his kids get older and leave. He heavily recruits the West and Pac-10 level players, anyway. It’s an area of the country he knows well.
I just can’t see him taking Meyer’s place in the Sunshine State.