What started as a joke somehow became Michigan’s next coaching hire

Brian Schaible

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What started as a joke somehow became Michigan’s next coaching hire image

It started as a harmless holiday bit, the kind that thrives every December when social media collectively rediscovers the same joke and runs it into the ground with joy.

You ask an elderly relative for one thing for Christmas. They mishear it. You end up with something technically related but wildly wrong.

A Jalen Hurts jersey becomes a Jalen Reagor jersey.

Close enough, but painfully not.

By December 20th, the joke format was all over the place, endlessly reused with different names and the same unavoidable punchline, but then it showed up in the most surprising location.

The Michigan Armchair Quarterback account fired off a post that fit the template perfectly:

“When you ask your grandparents for Kenny Dillingham for Christmas but they’re hard of hearing.”

The image attached to the joke was Kyle Whittingham, recently retired and completely outside the direction Michigan fans thought they were hoping for.

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At the time, it worked as nothing more than a clean gag. Dillingham was one of the hottest names circulating in coaching chatter. Wolverines fans were restless. The carousel was spinning. And Whittingham, older and completely out of left field, fit the format perfectly. The joke even spawned follow-ups, including one swapping in former Stanford and Notre Dame head coach Tyrone Willingham, pushing the absurdity just far enough to keep it funny while racking up over 1.6 million views.

Except college football has a habit of catching up to its own punchlines.

Dillingham soon made his feelings unmistakably clear. The Arizona State Sun Devils head coach wasn’t flirting with the market. He wasn’t leveraging interest. He wasn’t posturing. The alma mater mattered, and he wasn’t leaving it.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere yesterday morning, the news broke that Michigan was targeting Whittingham as its next head coach. Hours later, the move became official. A five-year contract. 

Suddenly, the joke didn’t feel hypothetical at all. Michigan were never getting Kenny Dillingham in the first place. And in that light, the tweet stopped being satire and started reading like an accidental prophecy.

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While the tweet initially bounced across multiple fanbases, the response since has revealed something else entirely. Most of the replies aren’t lamenting the outcome. They’re celebrating it. Comments range from amused acknowledgement, “This aged beautifully”  to outright approval, with many openly questioning why anyone would prefer Dillingham over Whittingham in the first place.

That’s the strange part of modern sports conversation. A joke meant to chase a trend can accidentally say what a fan base is already thinking.

The laugh still came first. But this time, the truth didn’t disappoint.

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Staff Writer