The Utah Utes will be ending an era when they play against Nebraska in the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 31.

It will be head coach Kyle Whittingham’s last game as head coach, as the 66-year-old announced he is stepping down on Friday. Whittingham is the winningest coach in program history, going 117-88 over 22 seasons. 

"The time is right to step down from my position as the head football coach at the University of Utah," Whittingham said in a statement Friday. 

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"It’s been an honor and a privilege to lead the program for the past 21 years, and I’m very grateful for the relationships forged with all the players and assistant coaches that have worked so hard and proudly worn the drum and feather during our time here."

Whittingham co-coached the Fiesta Bowl with Utah in 2004, and then took over as the permanent head coach the following season. Whittingham led Utah to a winning record in 18 of his 21 seasons.

This season, Utah is 10-2 and at one point ranked No. 13 in the AP poll, just missing out on the College Football Playoff (CFB).

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Whittingham was named the Western Athletic Conference defensive player of the year in 1981 in his senior year. 

Before transitioning into coaching, Whittingham played in both the USFL and the CFL from 1982 to 1984 before beginning his coaching career as a GA at BYU.

Whittingham joined the Utah staff in 1994 and rose through the ranks. He began as the defensive line coach, and eventually became the defensive coordinator before becoming the team’s head coach. 

His final game on the sidelines will be the team’s bowl game against Nebraska. Whittingham, who is 11-6 in bowl games as a head coach, will look to end his tenure with a win on Dec. 31. 

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The House Oversight Committee is ramping up its probe into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Republican lawmakers say the scale of the state’s exploding fraud schemes draw questions about whether top officials should have been able to detect and stop them ahead of time. 

To Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., the fraud schemes coming from his state are so numerous and so costly that he believes they represent either "incompetence or dereliction of duty."

"Well, with the magnitude of the fraud, I find it really almost impossible that the governor or his staff and the attorney general didn't know," Stauber said. "And the Minnesota taxpayers are paying for it."

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Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital he had a high level of confidence that the committee would find out whether the governor’s office should have been aware of the mountain of fraud and whether the state’s climbing losses could have been prevented, citing whistleblowers' testimony he hopes to confirm.

"We want to know how much fraud. Is it still ongoing? Were people aware [and] turned a blind eye? That’s pretty much the purpose of our investigation," Comer said on Friday.

The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation earlier this month after recent reports revealed that the state had been hemorrhaging funds through fraud schemes in its social benefit programs. 

The most prominent example, the Feeding Our Future scheme, resulted in a $250 million loss when fraudsters received payments from the state for services that went unfulfilled, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

But the documented problems stretch well beyond the one example.

Notably, the state had to shutter its housing assistance program after 77 housing providers were discontinued due to "credible allegations of fraud" uncovered by the FBI in 2025. Similarly, the state’s Medicaid costs covering autism-related services have grown exponentially. According to the Minnesota Reformer, payments for the state’s autism program went from $6 million to over $190 million since 2018.

Stauber said the widespread fraud had climbed into the "billions." It remains unclear, however, how much money the state has lost to fraud in recent years.

Although the schemes all look slightly different, Comer said they have one underlying question: Was Walz aware? 

"It’s going to be a pretty comprehensive investigation," Comer said of efforts to answer that question. "We’ve gotten off to a pretty good start because we have some whistleblowers." 

Comer said the whistleblowers told the committee that members inside the governor’s office had been made aware of the fraud but that it had largely gone unheeded.

"They're alleging that they made the governor and the attorney general aware a long time ago, and they did nothing about it. And it’s been an ongoing problem."  

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He said the committee would send investigators to Minnesota in the near future but didn't give a timeline for how long he expected the investigation to take. Comer also declined to say exactly how many whistleblowers had spoken with the committee so far.

"Multiple," Comer said. 

When asked about the committee’s investigation and whether Walz’s office would comply with committee requests, the governor’s office said yes.

"We look forward to working together. While the governor has been working to ensure fraudsters go to prison, the president has been letting them out," Walz’s office said.