Michigan surprisingly fired Sherrone Moore and is now searching for a new head coach. The Wolverines missed the busy season of the college football coaching carousel.

It will be worth watching who Michigan is able to land during a unique hiring window. Several college football coaches have emerged as favorites to be named the next Michigan coach.

Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer has surged to the top of the list of the betting odds with a 29% chance, per Kalshi. Washington’s Jedd Fisch is second at 23% and had previously been linked to other openings like Florida before the Gators hired Jon Sumrall.

One of the more intriguing names is Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham, who is third in the odds at 17%. Let’s dive into the latest rumors surrounding Michigan’s coaching search.

Potential Michigan target Kenny Dillingham signed a $29 million contract extension with Arizona State in Jan. 2025

Dillingham has been a popular name amid a busy coaching carousel, but so far has not shown an eagerness to leave his alma mater. The coach has helped make Arizona State into a perennial Big 12 contender and led the Sun Devils to a College Football Playoff berth in 2024.

Back in January, Dillingham signed a five-year, $29 million contract extension with Arizona State, per ESPN. It will be worth watching to see if Michigan could entice Dillingham to leave home.

Arizona HC Kenny Dillingham on coaching rumors: ‘This is home’

Michigan could offer Dillingham more NIL resources than Arizona State. So far, Dillingham has shown patience despite constant rumors linking him to other jobs.

“I never said I was leaving,” Dillingham noted back in November, per Newsweek. “This is home. You do have to continue to push. And my job running the program is to push and push and push until you can’t push anymore.

“And if I didn’t do that, I’d be cheating my players. I’d be cheating my staff. I’d be cheating the fan base. I’d be cheating everybody in the city. I’d be cheating the local businesses that feed off of us winning, and then they sell more beer. I’d be cheating everybody,” Dillingham continued.

“My number one goal always is to do whatever I can to push the envelope for Arizona State football.” 

It’s the best time of year to be a college football fan. After another chaotic season, the field for the 12-team College Football Playoff has been set, and in just a few short weeks we’ll be crowning a new national champion.

Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tulane, Ole Miss, Miami (Fla.), Oregon and James Madison are the final teams standing. Whether you’re a lifelong Crimson Tide fan, or just jumping on the bandwagon this year, we’ve got plenty of ways to gear up for the postseason. Here’s everything you need to cheer on Alabama throughout the College Football Playoff.

Related:How to buy tickets for every College Football Playoffs game

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As Michigan searches for a new coach, the firing of Sherrone Moore opens the door for top Wolverines like Bryce Underwood to enter the college football transfer portal. Fans may remember that Underwood had a highly competitive recruiting battle that led to a lucrative NIL deal with Michigan.

The Wolverines could benefit from the details of this NIL deal, which may make it more difficult for Underwood to bolt. If Underwood does consider leaving Michigan, one college football program looms above the rest as a potential fit.

Prior to joining Michigan, Underwood was committed to LSU. It just so happens that LSU has a new coach who has a strong track record of working with quarterbacks.

Lane Kiffin is already shooting his shot by recruiting Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed on social media. Could LSU make a renewed push to poach Underwood given the uncertainty surrounding Michigan?

Let’s revisit Underwood’s recruitment.

Michigan QB Bryce Underwood was originally committed to LSU

Underwood landed a lucrative NIL deal at Michigan. The quarterback’s NIL value is projected at $3 million, one of the highest of any player, per On3. Here is what Underwood had to say about LSU back in June 2024 when the quarterback was committed to the Tigers.

“Honestly, just keeping my name clean [is a priority],” Underwood said at the time, per On3. “Just focusing on what my main goal is [the NFL] and keep everything out of the way. … LSU, honestly, just keeps building and building the process of their players.

“The growth I’ve seen the last couple of years in Jayden Daniels, Garrett Nussmeier and now Colin Hurley now. Just seeing the growth of them is bringing me closer and closer [to LSU].”

Michigan QB Bryce Underwood was recruited by other top college football programs, including LSU, Alabama and Ohio State

It is worth noting that Moore’s firing does not guarantee that Underwood will leave Michigan. Yet, the longer Michigan’s coaching search goes, the more speculation will swirl about Underwood’s future.

LSU and Michigan were the two heavy hitters in Underwood’s recruitment, but there were additional programs who pursued the touted quarterback. Underwood had offers from nearly every major college football program, including Alabama, Ohio State, Tennessee and Notre Dame.

So far, Underwood has remained quiet since the Wolverines moved on from Moore. It will be interesting to see if Kiffin attempts to make a strong push to bring Underwood to LSU in one of his first major moves. One of the top priorities for Michigan’s next coach will be attempting to keep Underwood in Ann Arbor.

The University of Utah approved a groundbreaking private equity deal Tuesday that promised hundreds of millions of dollars for the school’s athletic department, which like nearly every athletic department in the country is running an annual deficit.

This was a historic vote. The Utes need money. Otro Capital of New York, a firm that seeks investments in sports, sees an opportunity. The company is offering more than $400 million to the school, a source told ESPN, plus Otro’s operational expertise, to generate new revenue streams for the department.

“I think we can go from surviving to thriving,” Utah trustee Bassam Salem said before the vote, echoing the optimism of the moment. He then expressed the shared concern: “Are there risks? Yes. Am I concerned? Yes.”

Everyone should be; not just at Utah but across college athletics, where deals like these are expected to become more common.

The core problem though, which the smart folks in private equity have certainly realized, is this:

College athletics doesn’t have a revenue problem.

It has a spending problem.

Even as revenue goes up and up from richer media deals, expanded playoffs and modernized operations, costs continue to soar because of revenue sharing with athletes, coaching salaries, increased travel and debt on ever-more opulent stadiums and locker rooms.

At some point, spending has to be addressed. Private equity firms, renowned for acquiring investments with an eye toward cutting costs, consolidating and reselling for a profit, are likely to do it with a different mindset than college administrators.

An Otro spokesman declined comment on this deal, which isn’t expected to close until 2026.

Typically, though, it would seem that private equity companies aren’t really interested in college athletics — which lose money at nearly every school — but rather college football and, to a lesser degree, men’s college basketball, both of which turn significant profits at the major level.

Utah athletics, for example, lost $17 million in fiscal 2024 after spending $126.8 million against $109.8 million in revenue, per school documents. That’s a 15.8% deficit.

However, the Utes football program turned a $26.8 million profit. Men’s basketball followed at $2.6 million. The remaining 17 programs lost $21.2 million, per documents.

It’s Business 101: If costs need to be cut, then nonprofitable divisions get the axe, perhaps completely. In this case, that could mean Olympic sports teams.

Not everything at a university should have to make money, of course. Every school has a marching band. Yet that isn’t how private equity traditionally works — this is business, not academia. What’s the cost analysis on the clarinet section?

That’s the crossroads that is coming.

No one will say for certain whether sports will be scaled back or even cut, and perhaps they won’t be, especially in the near term. Business is business though.

Final details of the Utah-Otro deal will be hashed out before closing in 2026. But the basics are this: In exchange for the cash infusion, Otro will get a minority share of the newly created, for-profit entity Utah Brands & Entertainment. The university’s foundation will own the majority.

That entity will handle sponsorships, NIL, ticket sales and other business-side items. The university’s argument is that Otro’s expertise will increase revenue. Utah, meanwhile, will control scheduling, hirings and firings and handling the student-athletes.

Utah was in the red despite, it noted, “ticket sales, number of donors, and total donations … [improving] year-over-year.” The department already collects $6.2 million in fees from students courtesy of a $82.69 per-semester charge, according to documents.

Essentially, something needed to be done.

“There’s equal risk of actually not doing anything,” school president Taylor Randall said at Tuesday’s meeting.

So Utah is getting a cash infusion and some operational expertise in exchange for … ?

That’s the question.

Utah says it will have governing control over Utah Brands & Entertainment. “Decisions regarding sports, coaches, scheduling, operations, student-athlete care and other athletics matters will remain solely with the athletics department,” athletic director Mark Harlan said.

Generally speaking, though, across college athletics, a business approach to an athletic department is going to lead to uncomfortable and previously politically-loaded conversations about cutting expenses.

That’s because no school has consistently managed to generate enough revenue to cover ever-rising costs.

Even mighty and massive Ohio State, which brought in $254.9 million of revenue in fiscal 2024 (or nearly 2.5 times the amount of Utah), according to school documents, ran a $37.7 million deficit while operating 32 athletic programs.

It’s one reason Ohio State supported a $2.4 billion private-capital deal between the Big Ten and UC Investments before the proposal stalled out last month because of opposition from Michigan and USC. Mark Bernstein, chair of Michigan’s Board of Regents aptly noted that until runaway spending was addressed, the deal was simply akin to a “payday loan.”

College athletics has done much of this to itself, mind you.

Costs have been out of control for decades. The facility “arms race” has been financially destructive everywhere. Leagues have expanded, causing spikes in travel for even the smallest of programs. Motivated by winning, almost no one has kept a latch on coaching salaries, buyouts or staff sizes — in football especially, but every program as well.

While there is certainly plenty of fat that can be cut from football or men’s basketball, those are the profitable divisions that generate the money that keeps everything potentially viable. While Title IX compliance remains a factor, the emotional decisions about the value of other teams have been kicked down the road.

It’s how not just Utah, but nearly everyone else, has gotten to the point that these deals look like a life preserver.

Yet private equity is, usually, motivated to turn a profit to recoup (and then some) its initial investment.

How long until they, unmoved by arguments about the ethereal value of, say, having a tennis team, or that swimmers work as hard as football players, don’t push for bottom-line decisions — namely some of these teams need to go?