Kyle Whittingham could leave the Utah Utes this offseason

So some weird news has appeared this offseason from Salt Lake City of all places. Kyle Whittingham is coming off a very successful season, but it seems things are on the verge of blowing up.

Utah did lose their offensive coordinator Dave Christensen to Texas A&M, but that's not a huge deal, Utah seems to change an offensive coordinator just about every season. The bigger issue is on defense, where Kalani Sitake made what amounted to a lateral move to Oregon State. Sitake is considered by many to be an up-and-comer in the coaching ranks and is probably a top 2 or 3 defensive coordinator in the conference, so Utah letting him go was quite surprising.

It seems as if these issues have boiled to a head with Whittingham and the athletic director Chris Hill. Matthew Piper of the Salt Lake Tribune has more on all of this.

Remember when Utah capped off a breakthrough season with its first bowl victory in three years?

That was six days ago.

In the time since, three assistant coaches have left the program, and sources familiar with the situation tell The Salt Lake Tribune that the relationship between Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham and athletic director Chris Hill is severely fractured, perhaps irreparably.

Those sources, who requested anonymity so as not to compromise their ties to the program, say Whittingham and Hill were on poor terms before the start of the season and that the rift widened in recent weeks. The two met Friday, a source said.

None of this makes any real sense to me. Whittingham is a top three Pac-12 football gameday coach in my estimation. He swept USC, UCLA and Furd this season, two of those wins coming on the road The man beat Nick Saban in a bowl game for god's sake. Why would you want to chase this guy away?

We'll see what happens here. Cal plays Utah on Saturday, October 10th next season in Salt Lake City.