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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 1, 2017

Bronco Mendenhall

Greensboro, North Carolina

BRONCO MENDENHALL: The work continues here at the University of Virginia, diligently working to build our team and our program and compete as hard as we can and as well as we can. Anxious to play another Coastal opponent, and again, to compete and learn and grow. With that, I'll take questions.

Q. Micah is up for awards off the field, academic All-American, postgraduate scholarships and such. What in your time there have been your observations about him away from the football field?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Micah -- we have a saying here, and what I promote and what I believe is ultimately how you do one thing is how you do everything, and Micah does everything, no matter what area it is in his life, with just the highest of standards and the highest of excellence. What will be announced that probably hasn't been already, but he was selected as one of the 13 members today of -- oh, man, I forget the exact terminology --

Q. The National Football Foundation?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Exactly right, and received an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship, which then gets $5,000 for the academic support here, so he's one of 13, and now he's one of the finalists for the academic Heisman, which is just extraordinary because when you consider how hard he plays and how much time he invests in preparing to play football, which he does, and then every time I hear about Micah, no matter what area, from someone in the community, it's just, man, what an exemplary young man. And then the professors, the teachers, classmates, there's nothing but excellence as part of who he is. It's so important in helping us build a culture of what UVA football really looks like, and we believe in what's called the "and," and that means it's football and academics and social and spiritual and service, and he's exactly what I would like an entire team to look like.

Q. Was this evident to you almost immediately upon your arrival?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: It took time, just as I -- with any player and any relationship, but just day after day, you just start to form the clarity of who someone really is, regardless of circumstance, and I've seen him after wins and after losses and after in betweens and good days and bad days, and he just is a -- man, he just works so hard to be exceptional.

We have an extra session, and we meet and practice really early. The team meetings are at 6:30 every morning. There's another optional kind of session that's at 6:00, which means the guys have to be here before -- it's in the 5:00 range in the morning, and Micah is one of about 12 players on the team that he's there every single day. That's the earliest guys here doing extra to start the day, and man, it's so powerful. It's inspiring to me as a 51-year-old man and father to see a young guy doing extra just for the sake of there's extra to do, and the example that's setting is just -- I'm so appreciative of that.

Q. I was just curious, you mentioned Monday that Jack English was going to have an MRI on that knee. I was curious about the results of that, and Juan, is he practicing at this point or is he still kind of nursing that quad or groin injury?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, so the Jack English question, good news in terms of there isn't anything that's going to be surgical or anything that's going to require long-term care, and now it's just a matter of how fast that recovery, so it certainly will not be for this week. But hopefully before the end of the season. And I can't really be more specific than that.

And with Juan, he is practicing, which is a great boost for everybody.

Q. Kurt was completing passes in the 60 to 65 percent range up until the last two weeks, where he's been closer to 50 percent. How much of that do you think is the shoulder fatigue or whatever he's got, or what do you attribute that to?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: More mental than physical I think is what you're asking. Kurt, much like the rest of our team, self-imposed and also felt this new milestone possibly for the program that hasn't happened for a while of getting into postseason play, which started to overshadow not only a given opponent but the preparation and just causing interference that started to affect how he played. A little bit more hesitant, a little bit tighter, and a little bit more pressure filled. And so my assessment is that that was affecting his and our play as much if not more than anything physical.

Q. Now that you're still in the same place, needing one win to be bowl eligible, have you banned any conversation about that?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: No, I've actually -- you know, I didn't mention it during those two weeks and was just focusing even harder on the process, but it just became clear after two weeks' worth of just seeing us play tighter and less impassioned -- so I've taken the other approach. I've just kind of called it out. The brutal fact is, yes, this is the case, this is what the rest of the season will look like, this is the quality of opponents, this is how we're playing, this is what we need to do to improve it, so now that hopefully we've said all that and got it out, now can we go back to preparing and playing the way we're capable of, so I've done just the opposite of not banning anything. I've actually kind of had it come out of the closet, so to speak, and let all the stuff we've been storing just of flush out and now hopefully we can close the door and get back to work.

Q. Talk about playing against Georgia Tech because I know they do a lot of that option stuff, the triple option stuff. How do you get yourself prepared for that during this week?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: It requires a lot of off-season work and a lifetime of lessons. The first time I defended an option team, it was humiliating and embarrassing and just enlightening. I didn't know what it was, how to defend it or what to do to help my team, and have spent a long time studying and trying to prepare as best as possible to give our teams the best chance, and recent history has said we've done a pretty good job with that. But any given week you can learn and be humbled, and that hopefully provides growth, but it takes -- even with the really busy schedule of college football coaches in season, it requires even more, and we all know that, and we're trying to give our players the best chance, and it's a very exhausting week. If you play well, really gratifying, and if you don't, there's learning that hopefully applies for the next year, that you can really help your players have success.

Q. Do you think when you actually had to go play against the option, does this mess up your entire playbook for the following week?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, you have to step out of some normalcy of what you do and how fast you can transition in and back out. It usually affects how well you do not only the week against the option but how you do the following week, and that's part of the challenge of defending it.

Q. In the interest of fairness, should the ACC schedule makers make sure both teams have a bye if they've got to play on a Thursday or Friday night the following week to make sure it's an even playing field?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: I would vote for that, and again, and just due to fairness and equality. We all want a level playing field. I've been part of a Saturday night game and then having to play a Thursday and the opponent had a bye week the week before, and it's a real challenge. We're in a position right now where there are players that we've had available to redshirt the entire year that we're going to have to play this week just because of what our roster looks like, and so, man, when you consider what that looks like for the season but also what it looks like on a weekly basis, especially now that the entertainment part is so important and there's shows that even announce rankings and et cetera, the rankings are that important, then we ought to have clarity and equality on when teams play and hours of rest and days of rest if we're looking to have it be accurate.

Q. What's the one thing you need to improve on the most the rest of the season in your mind?
BRONCO MENDENHALL: Oh, consistency. We have some capable football players, and we have kids that really want to improve and build a quality program and a sustainable program here. But we are yet to demonstrate consistency in all three phases at the rate we need to in ACC play. So consistency is my mantra at this point.

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