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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 30, 2017

Bronco Mendenhall

Greensboro, North Carolina

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Hello, everyone. Looking forward to the start of the new year, continued growth and progress in our football program, and embracing and really focusing on the processes that it will take to help us reach our objectives step by step. Anxious to play football against an opponent rather than ourselves after a long fall camp, and looking forward to it. So I'll take questions.

Q. Bronco, how are you evaluating and going through this week with the unknown and William and Mary's quarterback situation? I know you talked about focusing on yourself and things like that, but when it's to be one of three options it seems like and one is a true freshman, how are you scouting things out from that end?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, it's difficult, even more reason just to focus on our schemes and our performance because really that's what we have the most control over. I'm not sure how distinct and different the styles are of the potential quarterbacks we'll face, and we'll do our best just to match up and adjust on game day as to who we'll see and what skillsets they have.

We have some information regarding each player, but there's not enough to be able to be specific enough to game plan and then say a plan will be set for a given player at that spot.

Q. I'm curious, when you guys have an established star player at each level of the defense, with Andrew, Micah and Quin, how much do those guys kind of lead and set an example for those levels, the front, the linebackers, the secondary?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: I think it varies by individual. Andrew has the least amount of experience in terms of those three, and has had the least production of those three. Escapable and has great potential. But I would say really in terms of consistency, that Eli Hanback, at least by the number of plays and number of snaps he played a year ago, is probably a little bit more of a consistent leader in a consistent leadership role up front. Micah and Quin are separate and distinct from Andrew in that they've played so well for so long in terms of productivity that I think there is a difference between Andrew and then the second two.

Q. For opposing coaches who game plan against a defense like that, is it easier or harder when there is sort of that talent spread out by level as opposed to having a loaded defensive front and inexperience on the back end or something?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think there will be some acknowledgment of our best players. That's certainly part of what any team does when they get ready to play an opponent not only as the schematics but then you assess where are the most productive players within that? Then, if possible, you attempt to make extra work for that player, take extra precaution, but usually not to where you completely change your identity.

But our players are relatively down the middle. I think that makes it fairly easy to say that the perimeter will be tested probably more so than down the middle of the defense. But I can only speculate on that.

Q. You guys obviously were thrust into a story that went well beyond football into the middle of fall camp with what happened in Charlottesville. I'm wondering -- I'm sure you had a number of players that it was a very personal thing for, I'm wondering how did you approach telling our players how to deal with it and keep that balance that something off the field is happening that is very big and they deserve to have their say in it, but focus on a couple weeks we have this game coming and we need to be prepared for that too.
BRONCO MENDENHALL: It was very difficult in a unique setting, but I really welcomed the chance, not the circumstances and not the story that we were facing. But I think all of us -- well, a lot of us craved adding value and having significance and being able to lead in some capacity outside of just the game.

Certainly our philosophy here and mine is it's through football that we can make a difference, not because of football. So I think through football we can help change and with the necessary things that need to happen in society and we can be an example and a rallying point for that.

Yeah, luckily I have very strong leadership on this team in what we call our task unit leaders, and Micah Kiser in particular. He did a nice job of setting the tone of this is real and we can make a difference. He wasn't sure that that would happen. The then I had a chance to address the team in a team meeting, and I just basically shared with them my personal beliefs that when there is challenge and conflict and things that are very, very difficult, in my life, I go to faith.

So I shared with them a passage of scripture talking about blessing those that persecute you and at least gave them my point of reference for where how I deal with it. I think that helped form a framework of where the team wanted to go, and that's then when Micah suggested, man, I think we ought to take a picture in front of the rotunda, a place that's symbolic of UVA, a place where the protest happened, and show that, despite differences, we see those as strengths for unity rather than division and dissent, that's kind of the outline of how it came about.

Q. When you look at all the rushing attempts you've lost from last year with Smoke and Albert Reid getting close to 300 attempts, would it be safe to say that this team would be a little bit more pass oriented?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think it's safe to say, and really I think even deeper than that you just really try or we tried a highlight of our most capable and most productive players, and right now we have a returning starter at quarterback who I think is a very good football player and has great potential. So really the ball distribution, as much as I like balance and as much as I like complements and moving the ball and spreading it around, it might happen more through the air than on the ground a year ago just as our personnel has changed.

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