Rece Davis, Pete Thamel weigh in on Bronco Mendenhall, candidacy for Nebraska head coach opening
It’s an intriguing possibility, former BYU and Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall taking the reins at Nebraska, and one that ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Rece Davis discussed after speaking with the coach on the College Gameday Podcast this Wednesday.
Mendenhall, speaking at length with Davis and Thamel, shared the he is absolutely looking for his next coaching endeavor, and what he is looking for in the gig: A chance to build something on the field, plus alignment with the athletic director and department about the commitment to win big in the right ways. It left Thamel and Davis thinking Nebraska would be a good fit.
“He gave me a great quote the other day,’ Thamel said, “when talking about why we are where we are in college athletics. He said, ‘Organizations are perfectly designed for the results they get.’ And I thought, that is really simple and profound. So, Arizona State wouldn’t fit in that. When Auburn opens, it certainly wouldn’t fit in that. And then obviously there’s an athletic director search at Georgia Tech that would precede any coaching search, so you don’t know if there is alignment there, quite frankly. So, if there were to be an open job that he was speaking of, the only one that would fit, would be Nebraska.”
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The fit of Mendenhall and Nebraska does seem natural. He’s piloted BYU and Virginia to sustainable success in the past and with the resources and absolute desire from Nebraska to simply be good at football again, it’s the sort of alignment he’d desire. And it would come without the pressure-cooker nature of Auburn, the administrative fog at Arizona State or the current leadership vacuum that Georgia Tech is addressing.
Thamel thinks it all adds up for the Mendenhall and Nebraska pairing — just don’t ask him or Davis to help out in any spelling bees.
“There’s three open jobs,” Thamel said. “One has terrible alignment at Arizona State, quite frankly, and we’re not sure what’s going to happen with Ray Anderson, the AD there. And Michael Crow, the president there, was like Larry Scott’s long champion — he’s muddied the water in athletics and kept the sleeping giant asleep. What’s that on Thanksgiving, the try-pope-inen that you have?
“Tryptomine,” Davis said, getting closer to the chemical compound in turkey that supposedly makes people drowsy: Tryptophan.
“Yeah he’s been the sleeping giant’s tryptomine,” Thamel said. “Michael Crow has kept it napping.”
And with the growing trend of hiring on-the-market coaches to fill vacancies before the end of the season to get a leg up, Nebraska seems like the only place Mendenhall would take part in that trend.