Virginia names BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall new Cavaliers head coach

The Virginia Cavaliers hired BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall to replace Mike London as the team’s head coach.

Bronco Mendenhall has been hired as the new head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers, according to Jerry Radcliffe of Cavaliers Insider, replacing Mike London who resigned after the year. According to Thayer Evans of Sports Illustrated, Mendenhall will coach BYU through their Las Vegas Bowl appearance.

London’s deal is for five years and begins at $3.25 million per year.

Mendenhall, 49, has spent the last 11 years coaching the BYU Cougars where he compiled a 99-42 record and made a bowl game 11 straight years. Over that time, Mendenhall’s teams have finished in the final AP top 25 poll on four occasions, including a No. 12 finish after going 11-2 in 2009.

This is a surprising hire, because Mendenhall wasn’t linked to the Virginia job, at least according to the major media outlets, but while surprising, it’s a tremendous hire for the Virginia program who had one winning season in London’s six-year tenure. London resigned after going 4-8 this year to drop his record to 27-46 at Virginia.

By comparison, Mendenhall’s worst season as a head coach was his first one at BYU in 2005 when his team went 6-6. Since then, Mendenhall won 72 percent of his games.

Virginia is hoping Mendenhall will be able to carry on that success with the Cavaliers and in the ACC where the schedule won’t be radically much more challenging than what BYU has faced in recent years as an Independent.

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This is a first-rate hire for Virginia and a tremendous loss for BYU who has to hire a coach for the first time in more than a decade, but maybe now they’ll be able to lure former BYU player and current Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham back to Provo?