Five days after the announcement of coach Mike London’s resignation, the Virginia football program announced last Friday that it had hired Bronco Mendenhall, head coach of Brigham Young University, as UVA’s 40th head football coach.
Mendenhall and his family – wife Holly and sons Cutter, Breaker, and Raeder – were introduced at a press conference at John Paul Jones Arena on Monday morning. Prior to that press conference, Mendenhall introduced himself to the team during a brief 45-minute meeting.
The players spoke with the media after the press conference to share their thoughts on their new head coach.
“Everyone’s ecstatic,” rising senior quarterback Matt Johns said. “We can’t be more excited, I don’t know who could be a better fit … I think we got a big steal.”
Rising senior center Jackson Matteo commented on Mendenhall saying: “You can tell he’s a winner. … He means business, he cares about his players, he loves to compete, he loves to win and he loves doing things with intention, he loves being methodical.”
“Success isn’t an accident and having four losing seasons in a row here at Virginia it’s time for a change and it’s time to win football games,” Matteo added.
“I watched the interviews with the [BYU] players after they announced he was coming here and they looked emotional. They want to win for him, they want to do things for him, and they want to sacrifice for him; I’m looking forward to doing the same thing,” Matteo also added.
During the press conference, Mendenhall emphasized, “I don’t think coaches are anything other than teachers.”
Rising senior offensive tackle Eric Smith touched on that part of the day, saying that after “overhearing him say he compares coaching to teaching, I feel like I’m very eager to be a student of what he has to offer being that he has had a very successful career at BYU – 11 straight bowl games, 13 years coaching there. I’m just bought in.”
“Here at UVa we haven’t had the most successful seasons the past two or three years, I wanna see what he has to offer; change is good,” Smith added.
After the team meeting, Smith said he could tell that Mendenhall is “not a push over, he knows what he wants to accomplish here.” Smith added that Mendenhall made it clear during the meeting that he has “already bought into the future success of this program.” Many of the players mentioned that training was a major topic during the team’s meeting with Mendenhall on Monday morning.
“A big thing we all picked up on is that he said the word train like four times within a minute of talking with us and we just got the vibe that this is going to be different,” Smith said.
When Mendenhall started talking about offseason training, “People got excited, you could feel the intensity in the room kind of raise and get a little more serious,” Matteo said.
“It’s definitely going to be challenging. He’s going to bring in new workouts and things we haven’t seen before,” Johns said. “I think we just need to keep working hard and he’s going to teach us how to work even harder.”
Touchback and rising senior, Taquan “Smoke” Mizzell added: “He said that no matter if you feel like you’re at your peak, when you feel good, you have to train more.”
When asked about what he remembers from UVA’s game against BYU last season, Johns recalled the Cougars’ toughness. “They were the hardest hitting team I’ve ever played,” Johns said. “I took two hits that game I’ll never forget and I think that’s just a reflection of their coach and I’m excited for him to bring that toughness to this team.”
Get ready for plenty of “moral victories” and lack of discipline by his players…..enjoy! Toast with his favorite….. “sucker punch!”