Quack back: Dan Lanning returns fire at Michigan’s Kyle Whittingham over NIL criticism

The postgame handshake between Dan Lanning and Kyle Whittingham will be something to monitor on Saturday as Michigan matches up against No. 16 Oregon in Eugene. That's because — as politely as possible — Lanning and Whittingham have exchanged barbs about each program's NIL spending.

Two days after Whittingham accused Lanning and Oregon of simply outbidding teams for players, Lanning got his opportunity to respond. During his Wednesday press conference, Lanning said the Wolverines might be more competitive on the NIL market if they weren't spending so much money on fired coaches and signing the wrong players to big deals.

"I've got nothing to say to Coach Whitt other than I think he's an unbelievable coach," Lanning said. "I get it. They're spending more of their money now on coaches they're letting go. Maybe it makes it hard to sign players.

"They've signed a couple of guys with what weren't able to compete with what they decided to do. Maybe a lot of that is tied up in another player, but I don't know. Coach Whittingham is an unbelievable coach. He's a Hall of Fame coach. I've got nothing but respect for him."

With Michigan scoring 19.6 points per game…

Original source: https://www.cbssports.com/