The postgame handshake between Dan Lanning and Kyle Whittingham will be something to monitor on Saturday as Michigan matches up against No. 16 Oregon in Eugene. That's because -- as politely as possible -- Lanning and Whittingham have exchanged barbs about each program's NIL spending.
Two days after Whittingham accused Lanning and Oregon of simply outbidding teams for players, Lanning got his opportunity to respond. During his Wednesday press conference, Lanning said the Wolverines might be more competitive on the NIL market if they weren't spending so much money on fired coaches and signing the wrong players to big deals.
"I've got nothing to say to Coach Whitt other than I think he's an unbelievable coach," Lanning said. "I get it. They're spending more of their money now on coaches they're letting go. Maybe it makes it hard to sign players.
"They've signed a couple of guys with what weren't able to compete with what they decided to do. Maybe a lot of that is tied up in another player, but I don't know. Coach Whittingham is an unbelievable coach. He's a Hall of Fame coach. I've got nothing but respect for him."
With Michigan scoring 19.6 points per game, the team just fired offensive coordinator Jason Beck and paid him a jaw-dropping $10.2 million buyout.
On a related note, sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood was benched in favor of freshman Tommy Carr, as Underwood regressed under a new offensive scheme. Underwood, the No. 1 player in the 2025 signing class, was paid handsomely by the Wolverines.
Not to put words in Lanning's mouth, but it would be easy to draw a line from his comments about Michigan having a lot of money tied up in "another player" to Underwood.
Whittingham began the pot-stirring
In fairness to Lanning, he did bookend his answer with praise for Whittingham, even if there was a series of thinly-veiled insults in the middle. He may have taken that page right out of Whittingham's playbook after the Michigan coach complimented Lanning's recruiting prowess before talking about Oregon's NIL budget.
"(Lanning's an) outstanding football coach, defensive-minded coach; that's his background, but tireless recruiter," Whittingham said. "He really does a great job recruiting. It doesn't hurt that you have $50 million at your disposal to, in essence, to outbid everybody. Not everybody, but a lot of people. But that's not his fault. That's a credit. I mean, that's a credit to their program and their dedication and desire to win and the support they have."
Oregon does have one of the most expensive rosters in college football this season, but Michigan can't exactly cry poor either. The Wolverines are spending more than $30 million on their football team this fall.
To this point, neither team has gotten a great return on that investment. The Wolverines have been eliminated from College Football Playoff contention, and the Ducks are one loss away from missing out too.
