Bronco: UVA has worst football facilities in the ACC

By Jerry Ratcliffe

During the previous five seasons, Bronco Mendenhall has had the opportunity to see most of the football facilities of all his ACC rivals. What he documented was revealing.

When Mendenhall and Virginia director of athletics Carla Williams went before the Board of Visitors last week and declared that UVA’s football facilities were the worst in the ACC, they spoke with authority.

Virginia’s facilities, not necessarily Scott Stadium, as opposed to a football program home, have lagged behind the rest of the conference for years. Mendenhall acknowledged this during his introductory press conference as UVA’s new head coach on Dec. 4, 2015.

The athletic department introduced its Master Plan several years ago to build a new football home and also headquarters for many of its Olympic sports. Fundraising for the proposed complex was delayed by the pandemic, but is in full drive once again.

Williams presented a detailed report about the department’s plans to the BOV before a member directed a question to Mendenhall concerning football facilities.

“So that [poor facilities] was my opinion, that that’s where we ranked, and a lot of that was based on a particular point,” Mendenhall said Monday. “I love all the history and I recognize and honor the heritage of the McCue Center, but we’re the only [ACC] football program that hasn’t renovated or built a new facility in 31 years.

“So it was really based on that one point. While this isn’t a complete point, it was more based on that.”

Even Al Groh, who coached his alma mater from 2001 to 2009, warned that Virginia had fallen behind most of the ACC in facilities and football program needs and added, “we’re one mis-step from being Duke.” At that time, the ACC was going through expansion, and Groh was afraid the program would fall too far behind the new league.

Years later, administrators acknowledged that Groh was right and they made a mistake not listening and acting.

Since then UVA has added the George Welsh Indoor Practice Facility, and recently created two new grass fields where University Hall once sat. Still, McCue, named after longtime UVA team physician Dr. Frank C. McCue III, was built in 1991.

The building housed a dressing room, player meeting rooms, coaches offices, weight room, training room, and some administrative offices. Prior to McCue, coaches moved from cramped offices in U-Hall to trailers located behind the old basketball arena.

Today, the football program has outgrown the facility, but Mendenhall and his staff make do.

“We innovate so our meeting room designs and our use of indoor, there is nothing like what we are currently doing in Power 5 college football in the use of the spaces and innovation that we use because we have simply outgrown so many things and they’re not capable or up to date to handle what we would like,” Mendenhall explained. “We’ve made the very best of what we have.”

The coach said he is anxious to be on equal footing, facility-wise, with UVA’s competitors.

“I think our team would love that,” Mendenhall said. “I think those assessing and selecting in the recruiting process would value that as well in terms of the priority placed on football.”

The new complex, the football home and the Olympic sports home, will require an estimated $180 million.