Mendenhall has Virginia’s football program right on schedule for success

By Jerry Ratcliffe

CHARLOTTE — On the eve of Virginia’s first appearance in the ACC Football Championship game, Bronco Mendenhall reflected upon his arrival in Charlottesville. His expectations were high or else he wouldn’t have left one of the most secure coaching jobs in the nation at BYU, where he had been for more than a dozen years as either head or assistant coach.

“When I was hired as the coach of the University of Virginia, Craig Littlepage and John Oliver were the athletic administration at the time,” Mendenhall told a crowded room of media at Bank of America Stadium. “At that point I remember making a statement that the fastest I thought it could be done was four years, and it would be sustainable and consistent and have a chance to be lasting.”

Mendenhall soon realized that UVA’s program was in much worse shape than he anticipated and the confidence of players was non-existent, which made him recalibrate his secret thoughts.

“I had hoped it could be done in three,” Mendenhall revealed Friday afternoon. “I didn’t say that (at the time). Internally, I had hoped.”

A 2-10 first season changed all that, but made the coach even more determined to succeed. So according to his original plan of four years, Mendenhall is right on schedule for putting Virginia football back on the map.

I was sitting in Bronco’s office some time last winter, interviewing him on myriad of topics, including why he and his wife, Holly, decided to give UVA a half-million dollars to launch the fundraising for a new football complex.

Our conversation eventually rolled around to the future of the program. The Cavaliers were coming off an 8-5 season and a lopsided victory over South Carolina in the Belk Bowl. Things were looking up.

Without prompting, Bronco said he wanted to show me something, walked across the room to his desk and brought back a slick piece of paper cut out of a magazine of some sort. The paper showed a year-by-year breakdown of another program in the country that had drawn praise for its steady improvement.

The seasons were: 2013, 2-10; 2014, 5-7; 2015, 5-7; 2016, 7-6; 2017, 7-6; 2018, 10-3.

That was 2-10 to 10-3 in six years. Impressive.

The team was Kentucky. Mendenhall was hoping that Virginia’s trajectory was similar. Actually, now that the Cavaliers have gone from 2-10 to 8-3 (with still two games to play), UVA’s trajectory is somewhat more accelerated.

“After seeing year one, I knew it wasn’t going to be three. It would be a minimum of four,” Mendenhall said Friday before walking out onto the new turf at the NFL’s Carolina Panthers’ stadium.

“Someone else I’m sure can do it faster or better, but in measuring my own capability, my staff’s capability, what I saw as the existing metrics and points of reference in that [UVA] program, than what I thought.”

Then along came Bryce Perkins, who accelerated everything and made Mendenhall’s dream become a quick reality.

“We’re not here without Bryce Perkins in this time frame,” Mendenhall said.

“Now, that was an intentional choice. We knew we had to have a quarterback that was dynamic, that could run and throw to make up for a talent deficit elsewhere. If we had been conventional, every other player would have to perform at a conventional level in comparison to components. 

“We needed at least one player that was capable of helping others raise their play on what the demands of their job was. Thank goodness, but intentionally we found Bryce.”

Perkins would say thank goodness Virginia came his way.

“And he needed us,” Bronco said. “Not many were interested in him, and we needed him, so it’s been a great fit.”

Littlepage and Oliver clearly knew what they were doing in luring Mendenhall to Virginia. That was a great fit, too.