Do you care if Ohio State and Michigan's coaches hate each other?

Plus some rambling on how the media talks about things.

Ryan Day coached against new Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham when Ohio State played Utah in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2021 season. (10TV)

COLUMBUS — New Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham listed his three biggest coaching mentors last week at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago. They were LaVell Edwards, the legendary BYU coach for whom Whittingham played; Ron McBride, the long-time Utah head coach who gave Whittingham his first big coaching break when he was hired as the Utes' defensive line coach in 1994; and Urban Meyer, who succeeded McBride as Utah’s head coach, retained Whittingham as defensive coordinator and then handed the program off to him when Meyer left for the Florida job after two years.

Whittingham’s worldview as a college football coach was formed partly by some or all of those three men. Consider that, then, when Whittingham talks about rivalries.

Whittingham stirred up the college football world on Thursday when he sort of shrugged off a question about whether or not he’s learned to hate Ohio State, and later when I asked him if there’s room for personal animosity between head coaches in a rivalry, he said he doesn’t hate Ohio State coach Ryan Day. It was good fodder for articles and podcasts about whether Whittingham “gets it.” Like most conversations generated from soundbites, nobody bothered to stop to think about the context.