Kyle Whittingham didn’t go looking for a change on offense until the film forced his hand.
After Michigan’s 15-6 loss to Michigan State, the head coach said he had planned to wait until after the season before making any move with Jason Beck. But once he studied the tape, Whittingham decided he couldn’t keep things the same.
Beck, the offensive coordinator Whittingham brought with him from Utah, was out. Offensive line coach Jim Harding was in as the interim play caller for the rest of the season.
“When I turned the film on and really dove into it, just became apparent to me that needed to make the change now, and there’s just too much regression in the offense in that particular game, and that’s what led to the decision,” Whittingham said Monday at his weekly press conference. “Zero outside influence. Just own my own analysis, my own feel, my own gut instinct.”
The pressure had been building for weeks. Fans had already started making their feelings known, including signs that said “Fire Beck” at U-M’s 28-21 road win over Rutgers. Another request for the same move briefly appeared on the Michigan Stadium video board this past weekend.
Saturday’s rivalry loss only sharpened the spotlight on an offense that has been stuck in the mud all season. Through nine weeks of the 2026 regular season, Michigan ranks No. 126 in scoring at 19.6 points per game, No. 132 in total offense at 302.6 yards per game, No. 109 in rushing at 128.7 and No. 125 in passing at 173.9.
Whittingham made clear the decision wasn’t easy. He called Beck a “great person” and “loyal guy,” but said the job demands hard calls when the program is underperforming.
“My job is to make decisions that I believe are in the best interest of the program, no matter how difficult they may be,” he said. “You got to put personal feelings aside because I really like Jason Beck. ...
It was not easy, but I’ve had to do it before, and that’s the nature of the business. You got to do what’s best.
I owe it to the program to do what’s best for the program. Period”
The problems on offense don’t stop with one coach, and Whittingham acknowledged that. Michigan already changed quarterbacks from Bryce Underwood to Tommy Carr, and while the true freshman has been better, he still hasn’t been able to lift the unit to where it needs to be.
The head coach said Beck couldn’t make the offensive line block better, couldn’t suddenly turn missed tackles into clean runs or manufacture explosive plays from the receivers. But Whittingham also said that’s exactly why the coordinator position carries so much responsibility.
“It’s not all Jason,” the head coach said. “Anytime you have issues like we have, it’s more than just one guy.
But you know, he’s the offensive coordinator. Things fall on his plate as far as the responsibility for the production or lack thereof in the offense, and so that’s why we made the change.
“But it’s got to be a collaborative effort by everybody to get this thing going in the direction we need it to go.”
Whittingham also pointed to the circumstances surrounding the start of his tenure in Ann Arbor. He wasn’t hired until the final days of December, and his coordinators arrived in early January. By then, dozens of Michigan players were already in the transfer portal, and the staff spent its early time trying to hold the roster together.
Even with all that, he said nobody viewed this as a rebuilding year or expected Michigan to be staring at a possible missed bowl game. The coach said the difficult setup can’t become an excuse.
“Not going to use that as an excuse that we didn’t have the right players for the personnel,” he said. “Because as a coach, you gotta make it work.
You gotta make it fit. And you can’t just say, ‘OK, here’s what we’re doing on offense, period.’ ...
“You’ve gotta be able to adapt to your personnel, and we just didn’t do a good job of that this year, plain and simple.”
The contrast with Michigan State was hard to ignore. East Lansing featured a team with less talent and a coach who had been out of the sport and had to assemble an entire roster, yet the Spartans looked like the better-coached team on Saturday.
Harding now takes over the play sheet, even though he has little experience in that role. Whittingham said that was part of the challenge, since nobody else on the offensive staff had been in that job either. Still, Harding was the choice because “he’s been with me for a lot of years now, and to me, he was the right fit and the right guy to get through these three weeks of the season.”
Michigan is 5-4 overall and 2-4 in the Big Ten, and the final stretch could decide whether the season ends with a bowl trip or not. The Wolverines still have three games left: at Oregon, vs UCLA and at Ohio State. If they lose all three, it would be their first full season without a bowl since 2014, Brady Hoke’s final year before Jim Harbaugh arrived.
Whittingham already has a profile in mind for the next offensive coordinator.
“Proven play-caller, proven track record of success,” he said. “[Would] be great if there is Michigan ties, or at least Midwest ties.
You know, someone that knows the landscape and the and the conference and been a leader. You know, excellent leader of young men.
I mean, that’s always going to be right at the top of the list as being a role model and leader for the guys in the program.”
Next up: Ducks
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