College football's second-longest tenured head coach, Kyle Whittingham has seen pretty much everything as he enters his 21st season atop the Utah program.
But with what he considers an unsustainable present in the sport, Whittingham is sounding the call for change -- and sooner than later. In his Monday press conference ahead of Utah's Saturday trip to face UCLA in the Rose Bowl, Whittingham was asked about the ability to retool rosters in this NCAA Transfer Portal era but also if there perhaps should be some more binding contracts.
Mulitple players throughout college football on this full opening weekend are projected starters or contributors while being on their third, fourth and even fifth teams. Kentucky is starting quarterback Zach Calzada after he began his career at Texas A&M, transferred to Auburn, left there for Incarnate Word and arrived at Kentucky earlier this year.
Miami is expected to start James Brockermeyer at center for the 10th-ranked Hurricanes's offensive line; Brockermeyer is in his first year at The U after beginning his career at Alabama and earlier transferring to TCU.
And, in Whittingham's own locker room, the Utes enter this season with 22 players new to the team via the Transfer Portal and expect significant offensive contributions from wideout Tobias Merriweather, who spent two seasons at Notre Dame, last season at Cal and now is on his third team in as many years.
"Multi-year contracts, I think there's some merit to that, but, you know, I think somehow we've got to get to the point where, and again, I say minor league NFL, not technically, but theoretically, we're the same type of setup, same structure, salary cap, that type of that," said Whittingham, who noted 50 percent of his current team didn't experience last year's "debacle." "Which, with it, will probably come a union, players union, all that.
"What we do right now is not sustainable. I don't believe it is personally. And, so, they've got to figure out a way to get some sanity to the whole thing. The prices are spiraling out of control for the NIL, it's not NIL now, it's rev-share monies now. It's still in place where I don't think it can continue this way without some major changes."
Ever composed and measured, Whittingham -- Utah's all-time winningest coach with 167 victories entering this season -- referenced two Portal windows as complicating roster management and retention at the collegiate level; he also noted that NFL franchises have dedicated salary cap specialists, an area college programs essentially also are encountering.
"First of all, with two Portal windows, it's tough to sometimes manage a roster because you've got to do it twice a year and you don't know exactly what you're going to come away with," Whittingham, who's engineered 17 winning seasons since 2005, said. "But, the roster, the Portal, definitely cuts both ways. We feel like we did a good job in the Portal this year. Then, of course, finances come into play as well.
"Quarterbacks are more expensive than retaining your own guys. But, you can't just retain your own guys or you'll run out of guys because eventually they'll graduate and you've got to continually replenish with new guys. Typically high school guys are priced pretty high as well. It's a balancing act.
"The NFL has a capologist, guys that manage the cap, and that's essentially what we have to do. It's a challenge, it's a challenge, but the Portal certainly allows you to go out and cover up - not cover up - but replenish if you're thin at a position or whatever. Helps you in that regard, but certainly different ballgame than it used to be. It's not going to return to how it used to be ... I guess it could, but they're going to have to have a major overhaul of the rules and how things are structured."
One on-the-field change that Whittingham floated? Preseason games, such as the three-week slate of exhibitions that NFL teams just concluded before the pro season opens Sept. 4.
"I don't know if college is going to ever go to a preseason, like NFL, and that wouldn't be a bad idea in my opinion," he said. "Have a couple of preseason games that don't count on the record, but we'll see."
Saturday's game at UCLA won't count in the conference standings, but is a chance for the Utes to score an early-season non-conference win against a Power Conference foe -- a metric key for College Football Playoff contenders. The Bruins are coached by DeShaun Foster, a former UCLA standout who signed Tennessee transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava via the spring Transfer Portal window. Whittingham called Iamaleava a "specimen" and compared him to ex-Auburn and NFL star Cam Newton.
"I don't really have any thoughts on his hold out [at Tennessee]," Whittingham said after being directly asked. "That's his business. I wasn't real close to that situation, monitoring it or anything. I don't really have a take on that."
But he doesn't regret coming back for his 21st season at the helm and his 41st year in coaching.
"If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have come back," Whittingham said. "If I wasn't having the passion for the game and the energy, because you better have a lot of energy for this job, you know that. So, no second-thoughts whatsoever. I'm excited to get the season going and watch these guys play and see what we can do."