College football offseason thread

Apologies if there’s already one, but I couldn’t find it in search.

Anyway: Bronco Mendenhall decided to stroll in unannounced to play amateur sociologist for the UVA Board of Visitors and didn’t expect the press to get wind of it. I’m assuming he saved the “What about crime in Chicago?” riff for the next chat.

Mendenhall doesn't want players' sole focus to be NFL future

 

Oh, man, that link doesn't come close to capturing the good stuff:

Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall: Only 27 of our players are ACC-caliber

Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall: 'I want to play the worst power-5 team that we can play'

 

What a weird way to announce he's bringing back the spring game.

 

I'd actually be pretty excited to have my alma mater come to town.

 

Mendenhall spoke very candidly for about 27 minutes on a number of topics relating to his football team and his coaching philosophy.

He spoke for 27 minutes. Unsolicited.

 

Bronco is a different dude. Not many coaches would go on the record like that.

 

That headline link could be interpreted as Mendenhall wanting players to focus on Good Ole' State U. so he can get rich off the amateur athletes. But the points he made in the story are actually very good.

 

He's also changed his policy on redshirts since he got to Virginia, to almost the opposite of BYU where he had grown men who went on missions.

He said because UVa believes students should graduate in four years, he won't redshirt a player strictly for athletic reasons. If you want to come back for a fifth year you better be ready for grad school.

That's particularly bold given the grad transfer rules.

 

How would you like to be the UVA AD/AAD who is calling around trying to schedule P5 games now?

 

The annual Pac-12 falling behind story.
Panic in the Pac-12 as conference quickly falls behind rivals

I don't understand what is so hard for college presidents and administrators to understand. The Pac-12 has the lowest viewership and attendance of the P5 - fans don't care. TV money doesn't show up because you have football, it shows up because you have a lot of people who will watch your team on TV. They don't show up in the stadiums, they don't watch on broadcast, they don't watch on cable and they don't watch on the Pac-12 network.
I think a lot of it is that seven of the 12 teams are in pro markets, so the Pac12 is always going to be a third tier where you have the highest concentration of potential fans.

 

As has been pointed out before, not announcing game times until a week before, in a conference where many games are not an easy drive, is also not a way to win hearts and minds.

 

I agree - but the Pac12 signed the blood pact - they have lawyers and the school presidents signed off on it. The schools should quit complaining about stuff they can't control and start spending money on stuff they can control - getting butts in the seats and doing everything they can to put out an entertaining and competitive product.