Kyle Whittingham
Kyle Whittingham ( born November 21, 1959 in San Luis Obispo ) is a former American football player and since 2005 head coach of the Utah Utes, the college football team of the University of Utah. He won with the team the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and 2009 Sugar Bowl, and in 2008 was honored by the American Football Coaches Association and the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association as coach of the year.
Life
Kyle Whittingham was born in 1959 in San Luis Obispo, California in the U.S. state of California, and grew up in Provo, Utah. He played from 1978 to 1981, the first year as a running back and then as a linebacker, college football for BYU Cougars Brigham Young University ( BYU). After that, he was active for the Denver Gold and 1984 for the New Orleans Breakers in the United States Football League in the professional sector in 1983. He graduated from BYU in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in educational psychology and gained there as well three years later a master's degree in sports administration.
His coaching career began Kyle Whittingham 1985/1986 as an assistant at BYU. In 1987 he was a member of the backup crew of the Los Angeles Rams in the National Football League ( NFL), before the defensive coordinator of the football team of the College of Eastern Utah in the same year. From 1988 to 1993, he then worked at Idaho State University. During this time he served from 1988 to 1991 as an assistant coach for the linebackers and special teams and then as defensive coordinator.
He then moved to the University of Utah, where he was initially responsible in 1994 as an assistant coach for the defensive line of the Utah Utes under his father Fred Whittingham. A year later, he took over from his father, who in the NFL was hired as an assistant coach with the Oakland Raiders, the place of the defensive coordinators. He held until 2002, under the head coach Ron McBride and then under Urban Meyer this position.
After the change from Urban Meyer to the Florida Gators University of Florida Kyle Whittingham was appointed in 2005 as the football head coach of the Utah Utes. At the same time the head coach position he had been offered by his alma mater as well. His decision in favor of the University of Utah was so against the background of long-standing sporting rivalry between the two universities and its own playing career at the BYU Cougars.
Kyle Whittingham belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints. He is married and the father of two sons and two daughters. His older son Tyler played between 2009 and 2011 football for the Utah Utes.
Sporting achievements and awards
Kyle Whittingham won as an active player with the BYU Cougars 1978-1981 Conference Championship four times the WAC as well as in the years 1980 and 1981 in the postseason each of the Holiday Bowl. In addition, he was in 1981 in the Western Athletic Conference ( WAC) was elected to the All- Conference team and named Defensive Player of the Year ( defensive player of the year ). In 2008, he was inducted into the Holiday Bowl Hall of Fame.
As head coach, he won the Utah Utes in January 2005 for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS ) scoring Fiesta Bowl, for which the team had qualified for an undefeated season in 2004. Since the coaching change from Urban Meyer was to Kyle Whittingham after the end of the regular season and before the Bowl game, both apply to the Fiesta Bowl as co- head coach. After an also undefeated season in 2008, winning the championship of the Mountain West Conference Kyle Whittingham won by the team in January 2009 in the Sugar Bowl, which also belongs to the BCS, against the favored team the Alabama Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. The Utah Utes finished so that the season 2008/2009 with the best placement in their history, a second rank behind the Florida Gators as a national champion.
For this performance, Kyle Whittingham 2008 by the American Football Coaches Association and by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association by the award of the Paul "Bear" Bryant Awards were each appointed coach of the year.