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Bronco Mendenhall To Virginia: The Interesting Fit
Bronco Mendenhall is leaving BYU to take over the Virginia head coaching job. Is he the right fit?
December 5, 2015
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Longtime BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is taking over the opening at Virginia. It’s one of the biggest curveballs of the coaching carousel.
Bronco Mendenhall? The interesting fit.
To generalize the reaction of Bronco Mendenhall being hired by Virginia: “Hmmmm. Okay.”
So what’s he doing in Virginia?
After 11 seasons at BYU and with tremendous success, the job turned out to be more than just a stepping-stone. He won 99 games – he can take down his 100th when he coaches the team in the Las Vegas Bowl – he came up with ten straight winning seasons after starting out 6-6, and he took his team to 11 straight bowl games. BYU didn’t quite crank things up to a national title level, but his teams were always tough, they almost always showed well against a good national schedule – at least over the last five years as an Independent. Throw in the two Mountain West titles early on, and Virginia is hoping it just came up with a big hire who’s ready to turn things around right away.
There’s rebuilding to do on both sides of the ball, especially on the defensive front, but Mendenhall is used to having to try to fit new pieces into key places, having to deal with church missions and players coming in and out at BYU.
Virginia needs to be stronger defensively. It needs an offensive identity, it has to cut down on the mistakes – the Cavaliers were miserable in turnover margin and penalties – and it needs to become a player in an improving division because of …
The Coastal coaches
Mendenhall is entering the ACC at a strange time, and now, everything he does is going to be measured against the other big hires.
Justin Fuente has already hit the ground running at Virginia Tech as he sorts out his new coaching staff, and Miami made the splash of the coach hiring season with Mark Richt. Mendenhall is stepping into a tougher situation than either of those two, and he’s going to have to create an atmosphere that’s going to be ready to take on programs with much higher expectations, and probably a much better talent level.
That doesn’t even count North Carolina and what it’s doing under Larry Fedora, the always-dangerous Georgia Tech and Paul Johnson, David Cutcliffe’s always well-coached Duke team, and Michigan State Part 2 with Pat Narduzzi’s Pitt squad.
Virginia needed a head coach who could pull his weight against the improving division. He’s good enough to do that.
BYU, your new head coach is …
Okay, BYU. If you can be a little bit patient, and you want to take a little bit of a chance – okay, a LOT of a chance – you might be able to land USC’s head football coach.
Steve Sarkisian is right there for the taking.
Yeah, there are a slew of things about him that don’t fit.
He’s not LDS, which means he might not be the right guy to be the most public of faces for the school. His divorce would be frowned upon, and his battle with alcohol would obviously be under scrutiny, but for a guy who’s rehabilitating his life, his health, and his career, BYU might be the exact right coaching job.
The former BYU quarterback was a JUCO transfer, but he knows the program, he knows the Honor Code, and he knows what it takes to make the program work. But he still needs to get healthy, he still needs to get everything else in place, and he still needs to prove that he’s not the Seven-Win Sark type of head coach who was such a controversial on-field hire for USC.
But if and when he’s sober, focused, and ready to move on, he could be a whale of a get. It’s a chance on greatness, but it would make for a tremendous story all the way around.
