That's the biggest disconnect. For the coach, it's a job. For fans, it's a passion play. When we embrace a coach and he decides he'd rather be coaching somewhere else, it fvcking stings.
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Bronco Mendenhall - Former HC at UVA & BYU
- Thread starter Buffnik
- Start date
For Mel, CU fan has to look at the disconnect within the administration and athletic department and we can't blame him one bit for leaving. It's simply just sour grapes, but that's part of fandom. I get the sense that is a lot like the Mendenhall situation with UVA. In the end, he probably did them a huge favor as he could have mailed it in for a few years and forced them to fire him with a huge buyout.
This post reminded me, what the hell happened to Chip Long? I thought he was heading straight for a good P5 HC job after he came in and helped save Brian Kelly’s job in 2018. I’m sure I probably wanted him to be our HC around that time too. Talk about a fallen star if he’s being mentioned as a possibility for a position coaching job here.
I can't believe he's only 39. He's had a lot of big jobs already.
Toxic personality. Despite having good success at Norte Dame, there were rumors of a player revolt and potential mass transfer. Career has been in reverse since then. I don’t know how much is true, and all assistants job hop, but he seems to stay a year or two wherever he goes.
He was linked to just about every job in 2020 as the next up and comer.
ahoelsken
Well-Known Member
Another hypothetical Mendenhall OC could be Eagles QBs coach Brian Johnson. Held that title for Florida when he was there....but I think Mullen called the plays. That's the dude who quarterbacked that Utah team in 2009 that embarrassed Alabama in that Sugar Bowl in 2009 IIRC. Very tied into the Meyer coaching tree.....but as the person who wrote that piece said-coaching out there is a tight fraternity. He's 36 and he's from Houston.
For me, it's pretty much down to a two-horse race: Bronco (pun intended) and Grimes
ahoelsken
Well-Known Member
Still want to see CU reach out to Tom Herman, but Grimes I like and would be fine with.
With you there. Listened to more of his podcast. His nerdy, "develop the whole person" stuff works great in Boulder, imo, and he just knows how to go to bowl games. We can say BYU is it's own thing, but 15 bowl games in 17 years is about as solid of a track record as you can get
Bronco remains at the top of my list.
My feeling is that we'd get our Tad Boyle for football. I think that's what we need right now if we're not able to land someone that shocks the CFB world like Petersen or Prime.
Wouldn't be sexy. National response would be along the lines of "good, solid hire."
Probably be here until he retires and have us in the post-season close to every year with a few Top 25 years mixed in. That probably doesn't sound exciting to many Buffs fans, but a solid, winning program that competes every week sounds really damn good to me.
My feeling is that we'd get our Tad Boyle for football. I think that's what we need right now if we're not able to land someone that shocks the CFB world like Petersen or Prime.
Wouldn't be sexy. National response would be along the lines of "good, solid hire."
Probably be here until he retires and have us in the post-season close to every year with a few Top 25 years mixed in. That probably doesn't sound exciting to many Buffs fans, but a solid, winning program that competes every week sounds really damn good to me.
I do think that Bronco would like to compete against Kyle W. They share a lot of the same coaching tree and competed for the same players.
Kyle was a BYU player and essentially hired to take over at BYU in 2005 when Utah gave him the job and he backed out.
Bronco got the job (he was BYU's DC at the time) as the 2nd choice.
Bronco had success, arguably as much or more than Kyle during those years. T
Kyle was able to recruit better at UU vs BYU, as time went on, but that has a lot to do with the Mormon church and UU entering the PAC12.
Bronco back in the west with his LDS ties, long relationships with Polynesian community, and proven football acumen would be fire.
He'd likely have a few strong LDS coaches and a few Pacific Islanders on staff. Utah pulls a lot of kids who are attracted to that, but don't want to go to BYU for a variety of reasons.
I see it as an extremely low risk hire. I don't know that our ceiling is known. CU has a lot of advantages over both BYU and UVA.
Kyle was a BYU player and essentially hired to take over at BYU in 2005 when Utah gave him the job and he backed out.
Bronco got the job (he was BYU's DC at the time) as the 2nd choice.
Bronco had success, arguably as much or more than Kyle during those years. T
Kyle was able to recruit better at UU vs BYU, as time went on, but that has a lot to do with the Mormon church and UU entering the PAC12.
Bronco back in the west with his LDS ties, long relationships with Polynesian community, and proven football acumen would be fire.
He'd likely have a few strong LDS coaches and a few Pacific Islanders on staff. Utah pulls a lot of kids who are attracted to that, but don't want to go to BYU for a variety of reasons.
I see it as an extremely low risk hire. I don't know that our ceiling is known. CU has a lot of advantages over both BYU and UVA.
I’m with you completely on this- I think you’re right that he’s be the Tad Boyle for our football program. Still my #1. Hoping that the rumors that he’s no longer a candidate are way off.
He feels like a guy who could produce Gary Barnett type results here which isn’t as exciting as Prime or a few others, but a huge improvement over what we have today.
I think I’d feel more relief than excitement with a Bronco hire.
ahoelsken
Well-Known Member
I think he would better prepare CU for the next round of realignment because he would produce those kind of results.
Hard not to argue with that kind of move.
Still do not want. Represents capitulation and a true end of CU football’s storied history. He’s meh and totally in line with a milquetoast RG hire.
Objectively, the only debate on whether he'd be the most accomplished coach hired since Mac retired would be with Barnett's resume. And GB was 35-45-1 at Northwestern, coming off a final 2 seasons there of 5-7 and 3-9.
He is not the kind of coach you want to roll with in the NIL era.
you could argue that Tad isn't either, no? What's your evidence for that?
Or he's exactly the kind of coach you want to roll with if your school doesn't have NIL cooperatives which can find about $10M per years in deals. He at least did a great job on player retention, not losing guys to the portal.
He has not done the gig in the NIL era. He was never a strong recruiter outside of the built-in fertility of BYU and the mid-Atlantic. He is the epitome of milquetoast. If he is hired, he signals a lack of institutional commitment to be a true player. Your belief that he’d be okay without resources is exactly my point. We need resources and a coach who will demand that the school give him those resources.
I'm coming around on this POV. Getting a competent Karl type (Low ceiling supposedly medium floor) living in the past is not going to juice me up.
Football is a totally different animal that requires far more investment. If your football team isn’t competitive, you can still make it work in basketball with far less money.
I can see the appeal, but ugh idk I feel like it's not entirely dissimilar to the KD hire. I think it'd be aiming for a 6-8 win team, and maybe that'd be great. Honestly it would, but it just doesn't seem like those types of hires really work out. I would call MM and KD the "well we aren't winning a natty with them, but we'll bowl at least" and neither dude was overly close to doing that.
I'm probably being unfair lumping him in with the MMs and KDs, he did bowl every year save one at Virginia, so putting him back west I imagine it'd at least be Virginia levels of good.
Digging into his better years at UVA, he only had 1 win against a top 25 team each season. I just worry he just aint it and here we go again aiming low only to be disappointed that the floor had a basement we didn't know about. If he can actually deliver some 6-8 win seasons I'm all for it
I'm probably being unfair lumping him in with the MMs and KDs, he did bowl every year save one at Virginia, so putting him back west I imagine it'd at least be Virginia levels of good.
Digging into his better years at UVA, he only had 1 win against a top 25 team each season. I just worry he just aint it and here we go again aiming low only to be disappointed that the floor had a basement we didn't know about. If he can actually deliver some 6-8 win seasons I'm all for it