Michigan football coach had no intention of firing Jason Beck until he made an assessment after the season.
Then, he turned on the tape from Saturday’s 15-6 loss to Michigan State and had felt he had no choice − he parted ways with Beck, his hand-picked OC who he brought with him from Utah, and promoted offensive line coach Jim Harding to interim play caller for the remainder of the year.
“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.”
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Outsiders had been calling for a change for weeks. Fans brought signs that said “Fire Beck” to U-M’s 28-21 road win over Rutgers, then another held up a phone that requested the same decision that flashed momentarily on the video screen at Michigan Stadium this past weekend.
The rivalry loss was the lowest point for a historically bad offense. Through nine weeks in the 2026 regular season, Michigan is ranked No. 126 in scoring (19.6 points per game), No. 132 in total offense (302.6 yards per game), No. 109 in rushing (128.7) and No. 125 passing (173.9).
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Whittingham said making the move was “very tough” to make because Beck’s a “great person” and “loyal guy” but said part of his job is to make those “tough decisions”
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“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”
As is the case with anything as rotten as U-M’s attack, the problems are bigger than one person. As much was seen when U-M moved on from quarterback Bryce Underwood and went to Tommy Carr. The true freshman has been better but has not been able to truly move the needle and bring the attack to where it needs to be.
Likewise, Beck can’t make the offensive line suddenly block well, running backs miss tackles or wide receivers make explosive plays. That said, it is his charge to find a way to make it work, even in the tough times, and that simply never happened through three quarters of Whittingham’s first year in Ann Arbor.
“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.
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“But it’s got to be a collaborative effort by everybody to get this thing going in the direction we need it to go.”
U-M’s staff was behind the eight ball when it came to Ann Arbor. Whittingham was hired in the final days of December, his coordinators in early January. By that point, dozens of Michigan players were in the transfer portal and the coaches had to spend a lot of their early days simply working on retention to avoid a mass exodus.
The portal activity was already underway elsewhere, and the new coaches were in the process of moving across the country and getting acclimated with a new team.
WINDSOR: Kyle Whittingham had to fire Jason Beck to stick around at Michigan
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That said, nobody saw this as a rebuilding year in which Michigan (5-4, 2-4 Big Ten) might miss a bowl game. It’s why despite being an objectively tough situation to walk into, Whittingham said the leaders can’t use it as a crutch.
“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.”
Simply look at what happened in East Lansing, where a team with less talent and a coach who was out of the sport and had to put an entire roster together, one that has objectively less talent than the team in Ann Arbor. It sure didn’t look like it was inferior on Saturday, based on how the MSU coaches were able to get their players to perform.
Harding, who is now calling plays, has little experience in that role, but as Whittingham pointed out, “nobody on the offensive staff had been in that role” outside of Beck. Perhaps that’s why U-M waited as long as it did to make a move, but Harding was the man Whittingham landed on 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.”
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If Michigan can’t find a way to win one of its final three games of the year − at Oregon, vs UCLA, at Ohio State − it will miss a bowl game in a full season for the first time since 2014, the last year of Brady Hoke at the helm before Jim Harbaugh came in.
Whittingham already knows what he’s looking for in the next OC.
“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.”
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham didn’t plan to fire Jason Beck. Then he turned on MSU tape
