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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 27, 2017

Bronco Mendenhall

Greensboro, North Carolina

BRONCO MENDENHALL: It's fun to be with you. We're making progress as a program, step by step and little by little. We had a convincing nice win versus Boise State on the road on Friday night this past week. We're looking to continue to improve, gain momentum, and prepare for the beginning of conference play.

With that, I'll take questions.

Q. I'm curious, I talked to a few of the guys this week, and they say looking back, they felt like maybe they as players let up a little bit during the bye week last year, and then obviously you guys had a slide after it. They said this year they've kind of taken a different mental approach as players to the bye week. Have you seen that, and do you agree with their assessment of last year?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: I think I have to agree because it's coming from them. Sometimes a coach's perspective and a player's perspective and perspectives are different. I'm learning a lot about this team, as well, and so a year ago, we possibly as coaches, even though our bye week model had been successful before and with other teams, that didn't necessarily mean it fit this team perfectly, so I think we've all worked harder to develop a plan and a mindset that'll help us improve.

Q. Have you changed anything in the model of how you approach the bye this year?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, we have. Again, based on this year's team, our current performance and their current maturity, our bye week model has been different every day than it was a year ago and different than I've ever used. I love the chance to innovate and improve and learn, and I think that's what we have done so far this season, and hopefully the bye week will be reflective of that, as well.

Q. What was the theme of the change? Was there something you were aiming for?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: The theme of the change simply is daily improvement. Sometimes in a bye week, there's focus on rest and focus on recuperation and regeneration and contemplation. This is just about work and improvement, and so we're really preparing more similarly as if we were to play a game this Saturday than if it was a bye week, and there's a slight difference in volume, but really the mindset is very similar, and I think that's probably the biggest change.

Q. What might you have learned about Andre in the last year plus, and to what do you attribute the spike in his performance, besides good health?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think work ethic and consistency, both mentally and physically. Dre, from the time I arrived at UVA, he's always been a hard worker and physically gifted. There have been nagging injuries along the way, and there's also been a mental effect of those injuries that sometimes affects concentration and consistency in performance. Dre is becoming more more durable, and more productive, mostly because of mindset. In my signed, the physical preparation continues to increase, but his mindset of just durability and consistency day in and day out and not so many ups and downs has really resulted in consistency and productivity.

Q. Just an odd question about a stat that jumped out at me, you guys have fumbled the ball nine times this season and recovered every one; is there any explanation for that besides clean living?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: You know, I'm going to go with the clean living one just because it makes me feel better, but I don't have an answer for it, but man, I hope it continues.

Q. If I'm not mistaken, Andrew King kicked off the first kickoff against Boise. You went back to Delaney after that, Delaney kicked one out of bounds but continued to kick, where are you in your placement specialists and the kicking game in general?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Our field goal kicker is more consistent right now and more secure in terms of his position than our placekicker, as was reflected in the Boise game, and so there still is a competition based on their ability to place the ball where we want. Most kicks and kickoffs do have direction and do have a ball placement that we're looking for, and so we want distance, we want hang time, but we also want direction, so whichever of Brian or Andrew that can do that more consistently, we'll assess it every single week, and that's still an ongoing process. Our punter is becoming more consistent, and so really our kickoff is kind of where we're looking right now.

Q. What about Mejia?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Really like Mejia, from a place kicking standpoint, meaning field goals, he's not as powerful from a kickoff perspective, so he's more of a distant third when it comes to kickoff.

Q. You mentioned last year on here about how difficult it was to, I guess, throw deep against Boise because of their scheme. Did your running game, your success in your running game, allow for that to work better last week, and as a follow-up, can you just address -- did you think your running game took a big step forward last week?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: I think our running game the last two weeks has improved, more so last week than the week before, just because of the quality of defensive front, which no question affects the ability to throw the ball. I think those two are related very, very closely, and I think that they're dependent on each other. That doesn't mean that it's the only reason. There are other contributing factors, but the more we can run the ball effectively and hit our window throws and horizontal pass game, the safeties at some point have to integrate themselves if you want to stop either one of those two things. And when that happens, that is the opportunity for the completions downfield.

We actually have done a really nice job on those throws with the exception of one game this year, and that was the Indiana game.

Q. Just curious if you could give us a status update on Malcolm Cook and Joe Reed, are they practicing right now and when do you expect them back?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Neither has practiced this week, and we're hopeful to have both of them back for the Duke game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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