What Virginia Cavaliers head coach Bronco Mendenhall has accomplished in Charlottesville in just four years really can’t be overstated. Mendenhall inherited a program that had just finished 4-8 and took them down to 2-10 in his first season.
In just his second season, he coached the team to its first bowl game in six years, only to be met with an absolute blowout, a 49-7 loss to Navy in the Military Bowl. Year Three was met with Virginia’s first back-to-back bowl game appearance in over a decade, since a four-year stretch from 2002-2005. The trip to the Belk Bowl resulted in a blowout in the other direction, with the Hoos victorious over the SEC South Carolina team, 28-0.