	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 5, 2016

Bronco Mendenhall

Greensboro, North Carolina

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, it's good to be with you all today. Our program continues to learn and grow and develop and improve. So the first five weeks of the season I think we did take another step forward in learning and glowing and improving in our first ACC game and the road win against Duke.

Anxious to continue to work and develop and get ready for our next ACC opponent we play at home in Pittsburgh. Working very hard in our bye week and working to improve our program for the next game. So I'll take whatever questions anyone has.

Q. Good morning, Coach. Watching that Duke game, obviously you guys used much more pronounced, dramatic line splits with the offensive line. I'm curious, was that something match-up driven in the Duke game? What did you get out of that, or is that something you'll be using going forward?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: A little bit of both. Starting with the Oregon game, we've continued to work toward widening our splits. There are a number of advantages that I'm really not interested in talking much about schematically, but we have a philosophy that way that we think gives us an advantage in some cases, and so we've been, again, working on that. Against Duke, just simply for the purposes we thought and versus the number of pressures that they were bringing, most people think that shrinking splits down is the answer to that, and we have a philosophy. So it was not only Duke specific, but it's something that you could see very well moving forward.

Q. And you moved after the first ballgame Michael Mooney who did guard and lineup at tackle, how big an impact has that move had, and what do you like about the offensive line right now?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: First of all, the first part of the question, it just gave us it seems to be a little better chemistry, a little better execution, and a little better consistency from the minute we did that until now. So it's exponentially growing. So I like, again, the chemistry and consistency it's giving us, which is a huge thing with the offensive line. Then I think the offensive line and quarterback are tied together, which then are tied to the receivers. Which means that we're delivering the ball on time to the first, accurate first read the majority of times with enough protection to do that.

Then when the protection does not hold, Benkert's ability to extend plays and receivers' ability to convert routes is helping us get some big plays out of things that possibly could be perceived as protection failures.

So we're just finding a way right now to stay out of a lot of the negative plays and minus yardage plays that we struggled with in weeks one and two.

Q. I'm not sure how much you'll reveal here, but how has Andrew Brown progressed since Saturday?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: So we're practicing physically, and so this is not an off week, necessarily, for us in terms of what practices look like. If anything, it's ramped up.

So I'll just simply say without disclosing too much that Andrew has not been able to practice to this point. Where he'll fit for the upcoming game, I'm not certain yet. So that's really as much information as I can pass on now.

Q. As a follow-up, what did you learn about your team on Saturday playing without him? Zach said yesterday it was a lot of calling some of the same plays. I know you said one blitz was called 14 times over, and you were able to create pressure that way with your linebackers. What did you learn about your defense playing without Andrew on that front?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I learned quite a bit about the defense, not only with Andrew but without Andrew. So simplicity is the key right now for this particular group and our progress. So really working hard to make sure I'm asking the players to do what they're capable of doing and what they know how to do best at the current time in their development. So that's what I've learned collectively.

Without Andrew I have to be much more intentional and much more specific about when I call things and why I call things because our chance to get pressure with a four-man rush or even three-man rush is greatly decreased when Andrew's not in there.

So it really becomes much more clear the intent of the call has to be specific to the play, which means my margin for error as the play caller goes down when Andrew's not in.

Q. Bronco, since you're on an open day, I hope you don't mind a question out of left field. Curious, if I'm not mistaken, you played at a junior college. How much did you recruit junior colleges in the West? Do you see that ever taking any junior college players at Virginia?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: So, yeah, I did play at a junior college, Snow Junior College, and I coached at a junior college, the same one. And at Brigham Young University we recruited some junior college players, but not many, simply because of the academic standards that we had at Brigham Young.

I would see a very similar approach here. The academic standards at UVA are challenging and are excellent, which I really like. So if we did ever have the need for a more immediate player, they'd have to be someone that was an excellent student, and a lot of times players that attend junior colleges are there, not the only time, but a lot of times they're there because they've not been exceptional students and done a great job in the classroom.

So just by a commonsense nature, it traditionally and maybe in the future is not a great fit from an academic perspective. But sometimes there are kids that were good students that were just late maturing physically. In that case, those kids might be able to fit for us here, which is similar at BYU.

Q. Do you still have contacts out there in the junior college ranks?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: You bet. Myself and our entire staff are really well-connected that way. So right now it's on a referral basis rather than a seeking basis, where those coaches know what we are, they know what we are looking for, and they know the fit we want.

So really, when they have someone, which is even a better way to do it because of our connections and they're looking out for us, they think, hey, we have someone that will fit this need for you and fit your place.

That's more of how we're handling it currently. It will probably be like that for a year or two as we settle into what our roster management will really look like here.

Q. When I looked back on your BYU years, obviously scheduling was a big challenge there as an independent. But your bye weeks tended to be later in the season. Was that by your design or just what availed itself to you?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, it kind of depended. When we were in the Mountain West Conference, obviously, there was no control over that. But what happened as an independent is no one really wanted to play us late in the year because they were in their conference races, and having a quality, non-conference opponent sandwiched in in the midst of a conference race isn't something really anyone wanted to do.

So by default it was our schedule is usually front-end loaded, meaning harder at the beginning and less challenging at the back end. The bye was kind of by default to fill a space where really no one wanted to come play.

Q. Have you been using this bye? Do you do the self-scout, kind of breaking yourself down? Because it seems like that's something you've been doing week to week anyway.
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, so great point. We do that ongoing. So there really isn't a need like some programs do to then, you know, do a self analysis of that bye week.

Again, what we've built in or what I've built into our schedule and being the head coach has also evolved defensively. I don't have a position group to coach, so I spend a lot of that time staying current with the self-study and self-scout. So we're just continuing with that the same as we would if it was a normal game.

Q. Coach, I want to second-guess you if I can, considering it's worked out in the end. Can you talk about the fake punt and what was behind that? Is it something you saw or thought you saw? Talk about how the defense responded after it didn't work?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, certainly wish I could have taken it back after it didn't work, and second-guessing is absolutely fair when something doesn't work. So I second-guessed myself. I really just thought it would be a time that Duke would not expect us to go for a fake punt. And momentum was switching back and forth. And I knew there was a huge risk. But I saw an opportunity that I thought we might hold on to and build momentum.

We ended up having a player that was substituted on that play that aligned in correctly right at the point of attack, and that Duke adjusted to or helped Duke adjust really well. Man, they played it really, really well. Luckily our defense went out with smiles on their faces and a lot of confidence and embraced the challenge, which was one of the biggest parts of the game in managing that end of it. So I was really proud of them for the way they responded after a decision I made that didn't work.

Q. It's kind of twice in about a five-minute period there, you guys have the one touchdown lead, you turn it over with the fake punt and then you turn it over with the interception. Both times your defense stepped up. I mean, they gave up a lot of yards during the game, but those two moments were pretty significant, right?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, and really, it showed another sign of maturity and improvement. You're talking about an offense the week before that had a lot of points. I really gauge any game on -- I've kind of matured over my years as a defensive coordinator and head coach where what I care about more than anything is how many points did we give up and was it enough to help us win?

And so there were plenty of times where Duke did a nice job on first down, managed second, got into third and short, and kept the ball moving, but I thought we did play consistently. I thought we played especially well at the critical times and critical plays. And we certainly did so long enough in forcing turnovers as well to go on the road and do something that UVA struggled to do for a while.

So our consistency is growing, not to the point of dominance yet, but more quality plays through the course of a game with less super highs or super lows.

So I think that's what would have described us in that game. And then we didn't make the critical plays we needed to make in those situations you're talking about. Man, training critical plays in those situations is hard to do. And we're starting to get to the point where we can execute well enough now in those critical plays to start getting some confidence, which it's going to be a long process here, but we're starting to make some inroads there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297