Everything Kyle Whittingham said ahead of Michigan’s opener vs. Western Michigan

Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham met with reporters Monday morning ahead of the Wolverines’ season opener against Western Michigan at Michigan Stadium.

Whittingham discussed Bryce Underwood’s development, Michigan’s expectations, the Wolverines’ running back and defensive line depth, injury updates, players who emerged during fall camp and his upcoming debut as Michigan’s head coach.

Here is everything Whittingham said Monday.

Opening statement

Okay, game week’s finally here. It’s been a long time coming. Players are excited, coaches are excited to see what we’ve got this coming Saturday. Fall camp went about as good as it could have possibly gone. Came out of it very healthy. We’ve lost one young man that we talked about, his lower-leg injury that will be long term. Otherwise, there may be a few guys that are not quite ready for this game one, but they’ll be ready shortly thereafter. So we couldn’t really be in a better spot injury-wise. And our guys are looking forward to being able to hit somebody else. Just like everyone else in the country, we’ve been beating on each other for eight months now and looking forward to lining up against an opponent.

Goals for opener

Yeah, I’d like to see a clean game execution-wise, offensively. Eliminating the false starts, pre-snap penalties, things that are sloppy. Defense, we didn’t do a whole lot of tackling in fall camp just for self-preservation. And so hopefully we can be sharp tacklers in the opener. And again, we didn’t do that by design. We didn’t want to take any unnecessary risk, but that will be something that will be key for us. In openers, there’s always a bunch of unknowns. You’ve got tape on the opponent from last year, but things change. New players, new coordinator. And so there’s a lot of things that we have to be ready for as coaches, adjustment-wise. You’ve got to be able to adjust on the fly, and oftentimes you can’t wait until halftime. Because if something’s happening right away that you weren’t prepared for, you’ve got to adjust and be able to combat it. But just a clean game, play it hard. There’s going to be mistakes in an opener. And great effort can cover up a lot of those mistakes if you just run to the football and play hard every single snap.

Opening-game emphasis

Well, just in an opener, just what I said, just alerting the players, hey, you may see things that we haven’t shown you. We can’t possibly show you every single thing as coaches. And so you’ve got to be ready for that. But like I just mentioned, effort. If you can get maximum effort and guys playing hard, then that’ll make up for a lot of those deficiencies.

Fourth-down decisions

Well, we lean on analytics quite a bit, or I do. I have in the past. And it’s not absolute. If I’ve got a gut feeling one way or the other, I don’t follow it by the book and that’s it. There’s times when we deviate from that. And where are we? I would say we’re going to be probably middle, 50th percentile, as far as aggressive and conservative on fourth down. Typically, if you look at the fourth-down attempts through the years, we put it right in the middle. Maybe slightly skewed to the upper half. Risked toward — I don’t want to say risky. I say aggressive.

Bryce Underwood’s progress

Well, we feel he’s markedly better through fall camp than he was at any point in the spring. Now, there hasn’t been any live work for him. Obviously, he’s not been tackled. We’ve been keeping the linemen away from him because if he threw and followed through and hit a helmet or something like that. So we’ve been very protective of Bryce. But how he’s operated and how he’s gone through his reads, how he’s commanded the offense is way further ahead than what you saw in spring. And how that translates when everything’s live, we’ll find out in five days.

Big Ten goals

Absolutely. Our team goal is to win the Big Ten. And if you do that, then you’re going to have a chance to play beyond that. But right now at Michigan, how can it not be a goal to win the Big Ten?

Running back rotation

Yeah, we feel like we’ve got a very strong running back group. As we’ve talked about quite a bit since way back when. Jordan Marshall is RB1, the headliner. Savion Hiter is a guy that’s shown a lot of promise in practice. Bryson Kuzdzal is a very dependable, talented back that would be starting at a lot of places. Our room is so stacked that he’s right now the third guy. And then after that, Tomas O’Meara would be the number four. It was Ka’apana, but we know he got injured way back early in the year. So that was something that was unfortunate, but that gives Tomas a chance to be the number four guy.

Limiting live tackling

For a long time. We’ve usually tackled a little more than we did this year, but we’re a little bit thin at some spots. And really, tackling is a function for the defense. Offensive guys don’t need to practice getting tackled. But for the defense, it is. We have had plenty of work against scouts. Not all the way to the ground, but just coming to balance and wrapping up. That’s one of the basics that you need to be an efficient tackler. But we don’t have a waiver wire. We can’t make trades. We’ve got what we’ve got. So you’ve got to make sure you get them to the dance, which we have done. If the tackling is not quite as sharp, so be it. But we’re coming in pretty healthy. I think that’s the tradeoff.

Defensive line depth

Still feel that way. We’ve got five deep at the tackle spot. Probably seven or eight deep at the edge. It’s going to be hard getting all those guys reps. We’ve got so many guys that are really good players. Two freshmen, Tariq Boney, number one, Carter Meadows. Carter’s been a little bit slowed down by a nagging injury. He should be fine in the next day or two. But we’ve been very blessed, player-wise, up front. And it’s just going to be a matter of trying to figure out where everybody fits and getting enough guys involved. We can’t get everybody involved because there’s not enough reps to go around. But yeah, we feel like the defensive front is a strength of the ball team.

Western’s rushing attack

Yeah, they’re a strong run team. I think it was the last half of the season, they averaged over 300 yards a game rushing. And the quarterback is a big part of that. The running back is really good. He was the MVP of the conference championship game, the MVP of their bowl game. They’ve really done a nice job running the football. That reminds me of us last year at the University of Utah when we were second in the nation in rushing. They’ve got a very potent rush attack. So we’ve got to be assignment-sound. And as we talked about, tackle efficiently. Our goal here will always be single-digit missed tackles. If we miss nine or less tackles, then we’re tackling pretty darn good.

Settling into Ann Arbor

Me personally? I’ve tried just about every restaurant in town. Test out the food. I won’t give any comments. Los Amigos is really good. Just integrating into the community. Doing everything I can as far as charity events, golf tournaments, helping out. Pretty much everything I was asked to do, I did this year. I also had a coast-to-coast alumni booster tour, I guess you could call it. There were several stops that we made. We got around the country pretty good to get boosters and alumni. It’s astounding how many Michigan people are out there. Everywhere I go, out of the state, it’s “Go Blue.” We have one of the top one, two or three living alumni bases, depending on who you listen to. We’re up in the top three. It’s been a really busy summer, but I’ve spent it mostly, like I said, trying to just get to know people and let people know who I am.

Fall camp risers

Okay, Channing Goodwin as a receiver. He’s really brought himself in the mix now. Make no mistake, Andrew Marsh and JJ Buchanan will be on the field 90% plus of the time, if they stay healthy. But Channing is a guy that really came into his own this fall. He’s a guy that’s going to be a factor for us. Nate Marshall, who had some struggles in spring, some things that I wasn’t real pleased with off the field. But he’s really grown up in the last eight months. Knock on wood. Hopefully he can stay on that trajectory. He’s one of the best pass rushers on the team, if not the best pure pass rusher. He’s got a real talent for bending the edge and getting his hips turned and getting the QB. Linebacker-wise, Chase has really started to function like a big-time linebacker. Chase Taylor is functioning like a big-time linebacker.

New program routine

Not much, because we pretty much implemented everything from the last place to this place. So it will be very familiar for us as a staff. We’ve gone through the routine, the pregame stuff with the players. So it’s not the first time on Saturday. It won’t be the first time we’ve gone through that routine.

Big House anticipation

Oh, well, Big House. Shoot, just the atmosphere itself. Whatever it is, 110,000, and I’ve been in it before on the opponent’s sideline. But being on the home sideline, with the crowd in our favor, I think it’s going to be — I anticipate it being a pretty exciting experience. What I’m looking forward to most is seeing what we’ve got as a team. It’s like I said before, Christmas time, unwrapping a present to see what you’ve got. So that’s what I’m most excited for.

Running through tunnel

Yeah, it’s something that’s building. All the students have moved back in. Coming out of that tunnel — now I’m not a coach that likes to be number one out of the tunnel, where they’re able to focus on me. The players will be out first. But definitely looking forward to it. Excited about this big, big, big-time college football here. Excited to be a part of it.

Offensive line confidence

Yes, we do. We feel good about them. We feel good about the whole front, for that matter. They’ve made a lot of progress. Jim Harding is a proven commodity. He’s an offensive line coach. He puts together a quality offensive line year in, year out. We’ll get the full effect of him for another couple years when he continues to groom these guys and build them and recruit them. But we feel very confident that they’re going to be able to be a solid group in the Big Ten. It’s led by Jake Guarnera, our center. He’s kind of the leader of that group. So I’m looking forward to watching them play. Right now we’ve got nine guys that we feel are able to step in, in a game, in any situation, and play at a high level.

Andrew Babalola’s status

Babalola is one of them that’s going to be unavailable for this week. I guess in the Big Ten you have a medical report. I think it starts on Wednesday and carries through the game. But I can tell you right now that he won’t be available, barring anything miraculous between now and then. He’s still on the shelf.

Michigan coaching emotions

Well, excited. I’m really excited. There’s moments where I think I look around and say, “I’m at Michigan,” which is pretty darn special. But then once the ball’s in the air, coach is going to coach mode. You’re on — I don’t want to say autopilot — but you’re focused in, and coaching the game is coaching the game, regardless if you’re in high school or in the Big House.

Chris Bracy’s camp

Very good things from Chris. He had a really good spring and he continued into the fall and really has been our most consistent number one safety. Rod is on the come. He’s going to play Saturday. He’s going to play quite a bit, but he’s not quite where he was prior to the setback. But Chris Bracy has been rock solid from start to finish.

Backup quarterback

Tommy Carr.

Setting season tone

Yeah. Well, you want to play well every week, but certainly your opener, you get a chance to again find out who you are and what you’re all about, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. But there’ll be bigger tests down the road, not to be disparaging to Western Michigan. They’re a really good team. They won the MAC last year, and we are not overlooking them in any way, shape or form. We know that the degree of difficulty as the season moves on goes up. This will be a good opportunity to see where we are and get a gauge on what our strong suits are and what our deficiencies are.

Defining 2026 expectations

Big Ten championship. That’s how we define it. We expect to be in the hunt for the championship, and winning it is our ultimate goal. There’s a bunch of teams in the league that feel the same way. Maybe every single team feels the same way. If you’re not trying to win a championship, there may be a few teams that are just starting to build. But at Michigan, you better have that in the back of your mind — or in the forefront of your mind, I guess I should say — every single year.

Scale of Michigan

No, I don’t think so. It’s a big deal. Every week, if you’re a high school coach or a college coach or an NFL coach, you’re all in. You coach because you’re competitive, and where you are doesn’t necessarily make any more or less of the excitement, the anticipation, just that competitive drive that fuels coaches. Everyone wants to win regardless of where they are.

Offensive line starters

No, we’re going to keep that depth chart. But yeah, except for Tommy Carr. You know he’s the backup guy.

Why Michigan can contend

First of all, the team’s got outstanding leadership. If you have a team that is player-driven, player-owned, player-governed, well, that’s the first thing. The leadership has been exceptional. We’ve got some really good players. Bryce Underwood’s development has been very encouraging. The defensive line, as we’ve talked about, is always the starting point. You want to play great defense, you better be great up front. We feel like we’re going to be really good up front. We’ve got a lot of pieces that are in place. How it all comes together, can you stay healthy, that’s always a huge thing. You go through a season and all of a sudden there’s five or six starters, the whole complexion changes. But if you can stay healthy and have the ball bounce your way a few times, you’ve got a chance to be really good. The schedule might be amongst the toughest in the country. Bring it on. No complaints, no whining.

Nathaniel Staehling’s impact

He is a productive guy. That’s the thing that’s most impressive, is how often he is around the football making the tackle. He’s a tackling machine. Some linebackers just have that instinct to be around the ball constantly. He’s got great instincts and football body position and angles. He just looks like you want an inside linebacker to look. He’s really performed well, and you’re going to see a lot of him on Saturday.

Nate Marshall’s growth

His maturity level, his decision-making, how he carries himself, his work habits, his ability to stay in control and not become a loose cannon. He’s a very emotional guy, but he’s really harnessed that and really become a really good teammate. He needs to be commended because the first few months were kind of rocky with Nate, but he’s really settled in and I’m proud of how far he’s come. If he can stay on the track he’s on right now, he’s got a really bright future.

Managing rotational reps

Yeah, that remains to be seen by how the game goes. Ideally, you’d like to get — the more guys we can get reps, the better. I mean, that pays dividends in the long run. It’s a long season, and the more guys that you can get reps early, if you have some injuries down the road, that helps you in that cause.

John Henry Daley health

100%.

Dom Nichols’ status

Dom’s back. A few days there, he was battling something, but he’s back. Those two guys we expect to apply great pressure off the edge.