Bryce Perkins Part III: The “Thorterback” Bronco Was Looking For?

When the great American poet Warren Zevon composed the tune “Excitable Boy,” he clearly didn’t have Bronco Mendenhall in mind.

The Virginia third year football coach admittedly rarely loses composure. It takes a lot to get him going. Even when assistant coaches and players are going bonkers after another big Bryce Perkins play, Mendenhall keeps his cool.

“You know, I’m an excitable guy so there may be a corner of my mouth that comes up,” Mendenhall said tongue-in-cheek at Monday’s press conference when Perkins’ big-play ability came up. “It’s just fun to watch an amazing athlete.

“There will be comparisons made, but there is just the athleticism, change of direction, and how dynamic _ it’s pretty special to be able to see, especially when it comes in the package being of a good player and a good person,” Mendenhall said. “That makes it better.”

In the previous two parts of this series, we detailed how Perkins, who will start at quarterback for Virginia on Saturday night against Richmond, began to show those special talents as a young football player and how he fought back from adversity. Part two left off with Perkins’ career developing at Arizona Western Community College, attracting an offer from several schools, including UVa.

Now that Perkins, a dual-threat QB from Arizona, has been in Charlottesville since last January, he has delivered some jaw-dropping performances in practice. We’ll get to that a little later in the story.

But how did he get here?

Virginia quarterbacks coach Jason Beck was looking for a dual-threat guy who could fit into what Mendenhall envisioned for the Cavaliers’ offense. Beck scoured the land, including the junior college ranks in search of “that guy,” when he had a conversation with Snow Junior College coach Paul Petersen.

Mendenhall wanted a guy – he describes them as a ‘Thorterback’ – who could use his feet as a bonus because a running quarterback puts an added strain on a defense.

Snow had a quarterback with similar skills to Perkins, but in a comparison, he wasn’t Perkins.

Snow lost a thriller-diller, down-to-the-wire contest to Perkins’ Arizona Western Community College game in which Perkins delivered a phenomenal performance. When Petersen told Beck about it, Beck was intrigued and wanted to see more.

This is what Petersen, a former quarterback for Tom O’Brien at Boston College, told Beck:

“There are guys who can avoid the rush and there are guys who have abilities to make plays with their feet, then there are guys when they make those plays, instead of going eight or nine yards, they’re going to get 20 or 30 … the Lamar Jackson type,” Petersen said. “I don’t know if [Perkins] is quite the athlete as Lamar, but he has ability to get to that next level as far as running the ball goes.”

So that’s half the combination to Mendenhall’s ‘Thorterback.’ The other half is, can he pass?

“Man, he can sling it,” Petersen said of Perkins. “I thought he wasn’t as polished throwing the football as soon guys I’ve seen at the level he’s playing, but he had all the ability.”

The Snow coach couldn’t help but notice the playmaking ability and believed that if the next group of coaches could just calm Perkins down a little in the pocket, things would be golden.

“He’s got some strong form in making all the throws on the field,” Petersen said.

Virginia emailed Arizona Western seeking more information and asked for transcripts, followed by a call from Beck, who told Perkins he liked his game and wanted to offer a scholarship. Growing up out West, Perkins knew little of UVa football, but connected with Connor Brewer, who had been at Arizona State when Perkins first arrived. Brewer had transferred to UVa, and even though he didn’t have much impact on the football program, still loved the place and gave the school a strong recommendation to Perkins.

When the family arrived in Charlottesville, toured the athletic facilities, the campus, and rode horses at Bronco’s house, the whole bit (pardon the pun), the coaches showed Perkins film of former BYU star Taysom Hill as an example of what they’d like Perkins to do.

“While I was watching the film, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s kind of like my Chandler High School offense back home,’” Perkins said. “I had been in a similar system before. I can come into Virginia and be comfortable in a system that I know.”

“Thorterback,” a reporter tossed out, referring to Mendenhall’s preference for a dual-threat in the form of the the Norse mythological god of sky and thunder.

Perkins cracked a smile and nodded.

In fact, back in the spring, when this reporter asked Mendenhall whom Perkins most resembled in past QBs he had coached, he didn’t hesitate.

“The closest comparison, and it’s far from identical, would be Taysom Hill in terms of athleticism, the leadership, the competitive spirit,” Mendenhall said. “It’s too early to say yet in terms of the yield and the outcome that he’s able to produce, or the durability. But in terms of athleticism, and style of play, that’s probably the closest comparison.”

Perkins loved hearing that description.

“Taysom Hill was a freak,” Perkins commented.

Hill wasn’t the only one.

Shawn Griswold, UVa’s director of football development and performance, has tossed around that word when discussing Perkins. Griswold has seen the entire development. He was in a similar role at Arizona State when Perkins committed and used to drive up on his own to work out after high school classes ended, and worked out and learned the Sun Devils system while still a senior.

Griswold worked with Perkins until the latter was injured and left for the juco ranks, but reunited when he accepted a position on Mendenhall’s staff a couple months after Perkins transferred from the western desert to the Blue Ridge mountains.

“Bryce’s numbers are as good as any top-end person you’ll see around,” Griswold said this week. “We hear the term ‘freak’ a lot … well.

“Bryce is 6-foot-2 and a half with a 38-inch vertical leap,” Griswold said. “And that came at the end of the summer conditioning when your legs really aren’t prepped for it. He was broad jumping (standing) 10-foot, nine inches. He power cleaned 340 pounds.That’s pretty good.”

Not to mention speed.

“Oh, and he hit 22.3 miles per hour in practice with helmet and shoulder pads on,” Griswold chuckled.

If you’re wondering how fast that is, consider that former Georgia running back Nick Chubb’s 55-yard, breakaway run vs. Kentucky on Nov. 18 last year set a record for the fastest speed attained by any person carrying a football at any level in all of 2017. He ran 22.3 miles per hour. Chubb’s run was measured by a GPS he wore, same as Perkins in conditioning in early August.

That’s a quarter mile per hour faster than former LSU running back Leonard Fournette was timed in a 90-yard scoring run as a Jacksonville Jaguar vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers, the fastest speed of any NFL rusher last season (22.05 mph).

By now, everyone in Wahoo Nation has probably heard about Perkins’ speed, his ability to beat you with his feet, which is a huge bonus in college football. The question has been, what about his arm? Can he throw the ball well enough so that he doesn’t have to run all the time?

“That’s the area that he has improved most,” Mendenhall said. “It’s the area that our team has improved most since Bryce arrived.

“Where the majority of the ball being moved early on in Bryce’s career with us through spring and early fall was happening with his ability to run, more balance is coming daily with his ability to throw the football and us to catch and protect, and so we’re a lot harder to defend when you can do both.”

Mendenhall believes the most growth in Perkins’ game has come in decision making and accuracy in throwing the ball.

Virginia’s coach has also been surprised by his new quarterback’s poise, consistency, and demeanor.

The Perkins family would have liked to have had the luxury of keeping their youngest son somewhere in the West to play football, particularly since older son Paul is now a running back with the NFL’s New York Giants. However, they realized that in order to play in a Power Five conference, it was likely Bryce would have to move a considerable distance.

Paul, who played for UCLA in both games against Virginia a few seasons ago, said this week that coming to Charlottesville was a solid move.

“I was extremely happy to see him go to Virginia,” Paul Perkins said. “There were some schools looking at him out of Arizona Western, including Illinois, but to Virginia’s credit they are a very good academic school. I think that’s going to take him miles further than any football career can take him.

“To be in an environment that breeds politicians and doctors and other people of society, I think is going to be awesome for him,” Paul said. “The opportunity for him to play quarterback and start is also awesome.”

With the NFL through with preseason, Paul Perkins said he is planning on flying to Charlottesville for Saturday night’s season opener against Richmond.

“I’m going to be there from start to finish,” Paul said.

He isn’t the only one.

Bryce laughed out loud during Monday’s presser when asked about his family coming from the Phoenix area to Scott Stadium this weekend.

“My dad said he needs about 15 tickets,” Bryce said. “All my family is excited.”

After reading the buzz for months, Wahoo Nation is excited to see Perkins play his first major college football game.

Even Bronco, but not necessarily for all the same reasons.

Mendenhall gets just as excited when he sees examples of how good a person Perkins is as when his Thorterback breaks off a big play.

“So that’s what makes maybe both corners of my mouth go up,” Mendenhall smiled. “The long run might make one corner go up, but then when I think about who he is, it might be both corners.”

Bets are that Mendenhall might just become that “Excitable Boy” this weekend if Perkins lives up to the pressure of all the expectations.