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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2016

Bronco Mendenhall

Greensboro, North Carolina

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Thanks for the opportunity. I learned a lot about my team on Saturday in terms of reference point, starting from not only cultural but habits and where they stand in terms of execution. Long road ahead in terms of becoming a quality football team and a quality football program, but a lot learned in our first test, and anxious to apply against a very good opponent and a unique set of circumstances, traveling across the country, so we remain optimistic and convinced that we'll have a great program at some point and have a clear idea of reference point starting.

I'll be glad to take questions.

Q. Bronco, Saturday's game both quarterback starters are graduate transfers. Just wanted to know kind of what your stance is, your experience with graduate transfer quarterbacks, and it's kind of a trend now in college football, and how do you see that trend and how do you view it and what's been your experience with it?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think it's a relevant question in relation to college football today, and I have mixed feelings. It's becoming basically a recruiting and personnel element in and of itself. The best practice and the things that are acceptable there are starting to permeate and become more prevalent with other positions, and I think there's a mixed message being sent.

I certainly applaud those young men that graduate and earn their degree, and I think that's really important as they frame their life challenges and goals and aspirations, and I also think there's something to be said for, I don't know, maybe loyalty and team spirit and seeing it through to the end of your eligibility with maybe the coaches and the team that gave you your first opportunity.

We're the benefactor right now of a quarterback that has transferred, and I'm very glad that he has, and so I'm in between in terms of what I think is exactly right for each individual, each institution, because I can see both sides of it, but I do see that particular trend now starting to move to other players, as well, and that moves more to free agency, which is a professional model, and I don't think that necessarily is where college football needs to go.

So that's my best attempt at answering.

Q. You told us that you studied other offenses that went fast to kind of get a gauge of what fast really was. I'm curious where Oregon kind of ranks in that. What do you like about their system and the way they move offensively?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think they -- when you consider fast, they're probably the one that has branded that, and where they rank in terms of others now, I'm certain they're right at the top. 22.5 seconds I think is what they were averaging in their first game, so very fast.

But sometimes fast offenses are running plays to run plays. Oregon goes very fast but they're very intentional and dynamic with the plays they run, and so they're able to go fast but also have a well-thought-out plan in relation to setting up an opponent with dynamic plays that are also very difficult to stop and lead to a lot of points.

Sometimes volume of plays leads to points. Sometimes volume of plays is mixed with dynamic schemes that leads to more points, and that's, I think, what Oregon has established themselves as over time. So fast and dynamic, and very few teams really are clear with that intent.

Q. When you look at your execution on Saturday, obviously volume of plays was affected by turnovers and some other things --
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Right.

Q. -- but did you see an offense that was ready to move at the speed you're looking for?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: No, we're not ready to move at that pace. A couple reasons: Number one, it's too much too fast for our current team, and also our personnel isn't versatile enough, meaning that we have more role players, and when you role play, that means you substitute, and when you substitute you go slower.

But putting the right personnel on the field for each play right now is more important to us in terms of production, at least that's what I believe, than the volume of plays. So we're making that trade going slightly slower with slightly less volume but hopefully higher quality with whom we put out there. That's the direction and the intent anyway.

Q. You have a lot of history with Oregon, playing at Oregon State, but a lot of the coaches were talking about how they looked at you in the 2006 Vegas Bowl as really a turning point when BYU beat Oregon so badly. Your position coach John Neal in college was kind of saying that he came to you after that game and got a bunch of ideas for what he and Oregon are still doing a lot of, at least culturally. Do you recall those conversations with John Neal about things you were doing at BYU that he really liked?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: You bet. I recall it like yesterday. John was my position coach and is a close friend of mine, and we had just beaten Oregon 38-8. I don't remember much about the game. I remember the score, and I remember there were some good players on the field for Oregon.

So anyway, we were building. I had taken over BYU and we'd had three losing seasons and we had put together a pretty strong turn in terms of outcome, so John reached out, and I shared a lot of the best practices and things were doing that I thought might be helpful to any program that might be looking for a change, and we had lots of conversations, and I remember him giving me feedback on things that they applied and how it went, and we had dialogue back and forth. It was very rewarding for me to be able to contribute and help a friend but also another program, which ultimately helps players and people.

Yeah, I remember it specifically.

Q. Also when you were at Oregon State, of course you overlapped with Brady. He's a fiery guy now, a lot of players love that about him. What was he like in 1990?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Similar. I was his graduate assistant, and so I got to know Brady very well. I worked with him for one full year with the defensive line and have kept in contact for a long time. If he's being described as fiery, I think that's right. I think he cares a lot about his players. He loves tough, physical play. He loves players that work hard and try hard, and I think his career reflects that.

I saw all that firsthand as, again, maybe as only a graduate assistant what a position coach can do. In fact, graduate assistants probably know their coaches maybe second only to the assistant coaches' wives in terms of who they really are.

Q. Do you have any memories of games in which you played either at Oregon, or against Oregon?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: I only have one memory. I visited Autzen one time as a player, and that game is usually -- it's called the Civil War, and it's the last game of the year. I believe it was my senior season. But I had suffered many stingers that year, and so I was limited in terms of the ability to play. But I remember walking out at the coin toss and just thinking what a cool college experience that was. I didn't play much in that game. Again, I had neck injuries that were kind of prohibiting that at the time. But that was a time period where both Oregon and Oregon State were struggling. Oregon was ahead of Oregon State in terms of being able to reclaim some of the things that they had done before and then ended up moving on to a great program. But I thought the atmosphere, and is always is electric in Autzen Stadium, and I remember thinking that when I was walking out for the coin toss.

Q. Just wondering, of the things or improvements you're looking to see this week against Oregon, what's kind of at the top of your list?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Oh, clearly execution. So our program is decide to really emphasis will before skill. That means getting kids to try hard and hustle and do things that way first, and the skill part really is the execution and the mastery part of the game. And so all that was manifest on Saturday is just how much that is a necessity, not only for the short-term but the long-term to actually improve the quality of execution at every position, every phase of football, including and starting first and foremost with simple fundamentals. The execution of our schemes aren't at a very high level or weren't on Saturday, but also the fundamentals within the execution certainly contributed.

We need to see fundamental football improvement, and we need to see scheme execution improvement to have a different outcome or a chance of a different outcome.

Q. In your experience, how can a long trip like this kind of -- does the team benefit from a long trip like this from a team-building standpoint?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: That really is based on leadership from not only team and the coaching staff, the trips are difficult, and a lot of times require unique planning, usually leaving a day before or sometimes staying through the night and coming back the next day, and those are all challenges. But they can be positive and they can influence team unity and chemistry if designed right, organized right, and the right leadership emerges. That's what our hope is now with it being so early in our program, that a challenge like this that's so far away and requires so many things at this stage of our program maybe will be a catalyst for bringing the team together and helping us play to even a higher level.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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