New Building Needed To Make Clear Statement UVA Football Matters

If you follow this site, then you’re aware of my column from last week that reported Virginia will have an important meeting this Friday to kick off fundraising for a new football building along with an athletic complex to house the program’s Olympic sports teams.

During his weekly presser on Monday, UVa football coach Bronco Mendenhall elaborated on why such a building is important for the growth of his program.

Why is it important?

“To make a clear and simple statement that Virginia football matters,” Mendenhall said. “[The football program] is not an afterthought. It’s a priority and we intend to be excellent.”

Virginia hasn’t been excellent in a long, long time.

Hall of Fame coach George Welsh’s program was a model of consistency from 1984 to 1999. Successor Al Groh strung together four consecutive winning seasons from 2002-2005 and posted a nine-win season in 2007.

Since then, Wahoo football has been rather irrelevant on the college football landscape. In the 10 seasons since that Gator Bowl year, Virginia has enjoyed one winning season (2011).

Mendenhall and new UVa athletics director Carla Williams believe a new football support building, state-of-the-art, will help attract better talent, the key to any winning football program.

“Like anything else on Grounds, we want to be exceptional,” the coach said. “That alone, the building and the resources to generate that simple statement brings or highlights all the work that’s going on behind the scenes.

“Until those two things are aligned it’s hard to truly have the tipping point that you never have to look back at,” Mendenhall explained. “It does not mean that [winning] can’t happen without it. However, when you consider not beating our rival for 14 years or not being in back-to-back bowl games for 14 years, none of that is accidental. It’s not an accident. It’s time to fix it.”

Well beyond time, really.

Groh told UVa athletic bosses upon the first ACC expansion that brought in Miami, Virginia Tech, and Pitt, that the Cavaliers were behind in many football areas, and that improvements needed to be made in order to keep pace. His thoughts were ignored and UVa has paid the price for it ever since.

London was given the Welsh Indoor Practice Facility, but that’s where it stopped. In fact, Welsh told me that it would have been a wiser investment to build a new football home to replace the Frank McCue Center, which was built in Welsh’s era.

Welsh, who last year stated that Virginia football is well behind many of its rivals in terms of a support facility, said one of of the keys in advancing the Cavaliers’ program back in his day, was the construction of the McCue Center. The building helped UVa mine some of the best high school football talent in the state.

Mendenhall and Williams believe the new building, which already has the blessing of Virginia’s Board of Visitors, will do the same for the present football program.

“For all those that want great football and all the benefits that come from that for the university, for Charlottesville, and I think the branding alone, there are so many benefits that have been well documented,” Mendenhall said. “Yeah, for those that grasp that, either from an alumni perspective, a business perspective, or a pride perspective, it can be planned for. It can be designed for. The results will show when that happens.”

Mendenhall said he is excited about the possibilities, that he believes the master plan for the football building and other support buildings are exceptional and likes the vision he has seen from Williams.

“And now, the matter-of-fact analysis is the traction and the support necessary to pull it off,” the coach said.

That’s what Friday’s meeting of heavy hitters is all about. Charles McDaniel, who was the Micah Kiser of the early Welsh years, is hosting the meeting. Williams will speak, UVa president Jim Ryan will speak, former Virginia All-American and Super Bowl champion Chris Long will speak (his Philadelphia Eagles are playing Thursday night, and he will return to hometown Charlottesville for the meeting). Even Tony Bennett is going to speak.

Why a basketball coach you ask?

Bennett has realized the benefits of having an outstanding facility to recruit from. As former associate AD Jon Oliver once told me, there’s no way a blue chip high school basketball recruit can visit John Paul Jones Arena, and ask for anything more from a facility standpoint.

That’s what Tony has. That’s what Brian O’Conner (baseball) has.

That’s what Bronco wants.

“Along the way, my job is to continue having football trend upwards and build momentum to make it easier for investors to say, ‘Okay, this is a good investment,’” Mendenhall said of the building.

“Good is a different topic than necessary. It’s absolutely necessary if the University of Virginia wants exceptional football and all the benefits that come from that,” Mendenhall stated. “To reflect it does matter and we want to be exceptional in all that we do. On Grounds, in the classroom, on the sports fields. I would say the same, not just for football, but for all the other sports.

“I would go as far as to say the well-being of the athletic department is tied to football’s success,” Mendenhall concluded.

He is right, you know. Williams understands that. She gets it. She has worked at traditional football powers Georgia and Florida State. She knows that football is the engine that drives the train.

She also knows that a 65,000-seat stadium sitting half empty on seven Saturdays each fall is a losing proposition.

Williams knows that fans won’t support a losing program. She knows the key to reversing the trend and making Virginia a winner again is recruiting better players.

She knows it has been done here before. She talked to Welsh for over an hour one day to pick his brain, even though he coached in a different ACC, and in a state where Virginia Tech wasn’t as dominant as it is now.

At one point early in his era in Charlottesville, Welsh and his talented staff couldn’t get the top recruits in the state to even take a visit to Virginia. Not interested.

The McCue Center helped lure them for a visit, and the more that came, the more came to stay, and the more Virginia won.

Mendenhall understands that fully.

Asked if facilities have cost Virginia recruits to places like Virginia Tech, Clemson, and others, Mendenhall didn’t even blink.

“The easy answer is yes, certainly our facilities have cost us,” Bronco said. “That’s an easy one.”

McDaniel, a former All-ACC linebacker and Virginia’s all-time leading tackler until Kiser and Quin Blanding came along, agreed with Mendenhall. It’s time to fix things.

Ten years, one winning season, rare bowl appearances, an embarrassing losing streak to your state rival, yes, it’s time.

“Accepting mediocrity with facilities and athletics, is no longer acceptable,” McDaniel said. “Everybody’s got to have the courage to step up and to do right by these student-athletes.

“We’ve got to get serious with this, and we’ve got to raise the money,” McDaniel added. “The school’s going to support it, and it’s going to get done. It’ll be where you can start telling recruits next year that this is real. Here are the plans. We’ve got to get people to understand and embrace the message.”