Kyle Whittingham is parting ways with multiple key figures in his recruiting/personnel department, including General Manager Sean Magee, Director of Player Personnel Albert Karschnia and Director of On-Campus Recruiting Kayli Johnson. This news was first reported by The Michigan Insider’s Sam Webb.

Webb also reported that Director of Recruiting Sam Popper will also be leaving.

The moves come three months after the university fired head football coach Sherrone Moore. As a result, Warde Manuel hired Whittingham to take over the program. With the roster now firmly in place for the upcoming season following the transfer portal window and the signing of the 2026 class, Whittingham made the decision to part ways with most of his personnel department.

Magee joined Michigan’s staff as the program’s first football general manager in 2024, providing oversight in all off-field areas, including the management of the player personnel department, football operations and the administration of the budget for all football-related activity.

He was instrumental in flipping Bryce Underwood from LSU during the 2025 recruiting cycle, navigating the NIL space and helping to launch one of the country’s first NIL collectives (Champions Circle). He also worked closely with Manuel on the possibility of in-stadium advertising in the Big House.

As for Karschnia, the Michigan graduate worked as an intern with the program in the recruiting and operations departments in 2015 and 2016 before becoming Central Michigan’s director of player personnel for five seasons. In 2021, Michigan hired him back as director of recruiting operations.

Johnson leaves the program after two years of being the director of on-campus recruiting. Both her and Karschnia were pivotal in leading all recruiting operations, both at the high school and collegiate level.

While the timing is certainly something to ponder, there is a lot to glean reading through the tea leaves. Whittingham has made it apparent he wanted to bring his own staff to Ann Arbor, and one name that should shoot to the top of the replacement board is former Utah GM Robert Blechen. He helped assemble Utah’s best recruiting class in program history in 2023. He spent the previous 12 years in various front office roles at Utah, starting as the recruiting assistant in 2014-15 before working his way up to director of player personnel in 2017. Blenchen is currently on the open market, so it would make sense for him to join his old coach in Ann Arbor.

There’s obviously a LOT to unpack with this news, so stay with Maize n Brew as we continue to learn more about this story.

A controversial high-end event center planned for Bloomfield Township, Michigan, has caused some residents to speak out against the proposal in a planning commission meeting on Monday evening.

One board member said the meeting was the most contentious in over 15 years. 

The planning commission decided to table the discussion on both the site plan and changing the zoning to allow the development at Monday’s meeting.

Residents say they found out about this potential event space just weeks ago, and many of them feel that it could mean up to 1,000 people crowding their neighborhood, lowering their home values. 

“This is insanity what I’m hearing. I didn’t even come here that upset, but this is making me upset. You’re telling me a basketball venue, a pickleball venue, is the same as a 1,000-person venue in our backyard, drinking alcohol, dancing, getting married in the woods,” said resident Greg Yatooma.

The high-end event center may be coming to the township, just east of Franklin Road, adjacent to two residential areas. People living in those neighborhoods say they are not happy.

“Banquet halls are about noise, alcohol, traffic, lighting,” said John Kalusniak.

Restaurateur Zach Sklar, head of Peas & Carrots Hospitality Group, which is proposing the event center, was at Monday evening’s meeting but had someone else speak on his behalf.

“Again, I think the mitigation we’re proposing right now is above what the state would require due to the quality of the minor wetlands we’re impacting,” said Reid Cooksey, from Stonefield Engineering.

Sklar declined CBS News Detroit’s request for comment.

CBS News Detroit spoke with Brett Northcutt, who lives right next to where the event center would go if approved. 

“Hopefully we can get a lot of the things we’re concerned about removed from the plans and then everybody moves forward,” said Northcutt.

Northcutt says he believes this project would be disastrous to the home value for everyone on his street.  

“[It will be] about a 20% decrease, so for us it’s gonna be probably 400-500 thousand dollars just for one house alone,” he said.

Michigan’s ride on the college football coaching carousel perhaps came unexpectedly, following the firing of head coach Sherrone Moore on Dec. 10.

The Wolverines, however, appear to have landed a strong fit as a replacement in Kyle Whittingham.

Michigan’s hiring of the former Utah head coach merited an “A” from CBS Sports writer Richard Johnson, who recently handed out grades for FBS hires. Michigan was one of four programs to get an A, joining Oklahoma State (Eric Morris), UCLA (Bob Chesney), and Virginia Tech (James Franklin)

Johnson gave Michigan State a B-minus for its hire of former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald.

Michigan officially added Whittingham on Dec. 27 — four days before the Wolverines faced Texas in the Citrus Bowl — after terminating Moore for an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Whittingham spent 21 seasons leading the Utah program, where he was 177-88 with three conference titles between the Mountain West and Pac-12.

More: Here’s a closer look at Michigan’s 2026 opponents entering spring football

Whittingham, 66, stepped down at Utah on Dec. 12.

“It wasn’t exactly a stunner that Kyle Whittingham stepped down at Utah — he had been on retirement watch annually as he got older — but it was surprising that he ended up back in the game at Michigan,” Johnson writes. “His identity should play well with the Wolverines, and the offense run by Jason Beck is tailor-made for Bryce Underwood.”

Michigan State football coach Pat Fitzgerald greets fans

Michigan State football coach Pat Fitzgerald greets fans at the Breslin Center on Dec. 2, 2025 in East Lansing.

Michigan State, meanwhile, fired head coach Jonathan Smith on Nov. 30 after two seasons leading the Spartans and quickly moved on to Fitzgerald, who guided Northwestern for 17 seasons before he was fired before the 2023 season. Fitzgerald went 110-101 overall, and 65-76 in the Big Ten, registered three seasons in which the Wildcats won at least 10 games, and two in which they won the Big Ten West.