USA TODAY Sports

Ahead of their season finale on Saturday against Deion Sanders' Colorado squad, Utah's head coach Kyle Whittingham was again reported as a candidate for a job elsewhere.

ESPN's Pete Thamel provided an update on Texas A&M's search for their next head coach during ESPN College GameDay on Saturday, and tossed out a handful of names. The usual suspects were mentioned as Duke's Mike Elko, UTSA's Jeff Traylor, and Arizona's Jedd Fisch were all named. However, there were a couple of names that were mentioned that caught a lot of people off guard, one was Mike Stoops from Kentucky. 

The second was one that Utah fans have been denouncing for weeks and can't fathom would happen, which was head coach Kyle Whittingham. Thamel deemed that he was another one of the "names on the Texas A&M radar".

Whittingham has been on staff at Utah in some capacity dating back to 1994, and led them to their first two Pac-12 titles over the past couple of seasons. Aside from being one of the longest-tenured head coaches in college football, his age (64) also stands out as a reason that Whittingham possibly wouldn't want to start over.

It is also worth noting that Utah recently learned that star quarterback Cam Rising would be returning for a seventh season.

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