Bronco Mendenhall

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Bronco Mendenhall

Date of birth	1967
Place of birth	Alpine, Utah
Sport	Football
College	BYU
Title	Head Coach
Record with Team	17-8
Overall Record	17-8
Championships   won	Mountain West Conference (2006)
Coaching Stats	College Football DataWarehouse
School as a player
1984-85 1986-87	Snow College Oregon State
Position	Defensive back
Coaching positions
1990 1991-1993 1993-1994 1995-1996 1997 1998-2002 2003-2004 2005-Present	Oregon State (assistant) Snow College (assistant) Northern Arizona (assistant) Oregon State (assistant) Louisiana Tech (assistant) New Mexico (assistant) BYU (assistant) BYU (head coach)

Bronco Mendenhall is currently the head football coach at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Oregon State University.

Contents 1 Early Coaching Career 2 Move to BYU 3 Restoring Tradition 4 2006 Season 5 Head Coaching Record 6 External links

[edit] Early Coaching Career

In 1990, he served as a graduate assistant coach at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. From 1991 to 1993, he served as the defensive coordinator for Snow College, a junior college in Ephraim, Utah. From 1993 to 1994, he served as the defensive coordinator for Northern Arizona University. From 1995 to 1996, he served as the defensive coordinator for Oregon State. In 1997, he served as the Secondary Coach at Louisiana Tech. From 1998 to 2002, he served as the defensive coordinator for the University of New Mexico, where he and head coach Rocky Long developed a blitz-happy 3-3-5 defensive scheme that produced NFL First round draft pick Brian Urlacher, who played in New Mexico's "Loboback" position, a cross between a linebacker and safety.

[edit] Move to BYU

In 2003 Mendenhall accepted the job to serve as defensive coordinator at Brigham Young University under then-head coach Gary Crowton. After three straight losing seasons, Crowton resigned. Two weeks later, Mendenhall became BYU's head coach. In 2005, his first year at the helm, the Cougars finished the regular season with a 6-5 record. They appeared in the Las Vegas Bowl, their first bowl game since 2001, falling to Cal 35-28.

[edit] Restoring Tradition

Mendenhall's agenda at BYU has been to bring the team back to its glory days of national and conference championships with a wide-open offense and an aggressive defense. His first step in his agenda was to switch BYU's uniforms and helmets back to the 1980s look, but with the navy blue tinge. Additionally, he has reached out to alumni and former players, both in an effort to bring back tradition and to search the nation for recruits. Rather than trying to make excuses for or work around BYU's strict honor code and LDS Mission situation, he has embraced them as positives in recruiting athletes who will succeed at BYU. He also had the university paint a midfield logo at LaVell Edwards stadium and reinstituted the use of helmet stickers.

[edit] 2006 Season

In 2006 Mendenhall altered the 3-3-5 defense he brought from New Mexico, changing to a more conservative 3-4-4 in order to take advantage of BYU's traditional strength at linebacker (and to minimize the traditional lack of depth at defensive back). This change has resulted in the top-ranked scoring defense in the Mountain West Conference and one of the top scoring defenses in the nation. Mendenhall also coached the Cougars to their first victory in five years over their arch rival, the University of Utah. The team finished the regular season with a record of 10-2 and a ranking in the top 25 of the AP and Coaches polls as well as the BCS standings. The Cougars faced Oregon in the 2006 Las Vegas Bowl on December 21, pitting Mendenhall against Crowton, who then was the offensive coordinator at Oregon. The game was a mismatch as BYU won easily, 38-8. Mendenhall has been named one of the nine finalists for the 2006 Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award. Greg Schiano of Rutgers won the award for 2006.

[edit] Head Coaching Record

TEAM	YEAR	WINS	LOSSES	Bowl Game
BYU	2005	6	6	Las Vegas Bowl
BYU	2006	11	2	Las Vegas Bowl
CAREER TOTAL	2 years	17	8

Preceded by Gary Crowton

Brigham Young University Head Coach 2004–

Succeeded by current

[edit] External links

• BYU Bio

Mountain West Conference Head Football Coaches
Troy Calhoun (Air Force) • Bronco Mendenhall (BYU) • Sonny Lubick (CSU) • Rocky Long (New Mexico) • Chuck Long (SDSU) • Gary Patterson (TCU) • Mike Sanford (UNLV) • Kyle Whittingham (Utah) • Joe Glenn (Wyoming)