Many of UVA’s powerful boosters have reportedly let it be known that if Anthony Poindexter is named the new football coach at Virginia, they will “write checks that will blow your mind,” according to a report on JerryRatcliffe.com.
OK, so, if this is true, then this was a coup d’etat, orchestrated by the donors to get rid of Bronco Mendenhall.
It’s all starting to make sense now.
These same all hat, no cattle cowboys hadn’t been writing the checks to get the program’s football operations center moving forward, even in the wake of Mendenhall leading UVA back from extinction in the Mike London years to the program’s first Orange Bowl in 2019.
That lack of support would have had to be a factor in Mendenhall’s shocking decision to step down on Thursday.
I’m not hazarding a guess as to this being the case. I’ll quote Bronco himself to let him make the point.
The coach answered a question from a reporter toward the end of his Thursday presser on how much more work it would take in terms of facilities and support for his successor to get UVA football to the next level.
“Significant, in terms of – I’ll put it this way, significant in relation to expectation of where UVA would really like to be,” Mendenhall said. “And there’s good progress being made through Carla’s work and President Ryan’s help. But more is needed. And everybody knows that. So, yeah.”
Another reporter followed up moments later, asking Mendenhall what else the athletics department needs to do to help his successor.
Mendenhall did his best to sidestep that one, but you don’t have to do much to read between the lines to know what he’s thinking.
“I think it’s a great question, but I really think, I’d love for us to find the right venue and let Carla answer that and stay on that point until everybody’s tired. And just let her describe that. And I think, because I don’t think it will sound right, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for me because I’m grateful, but I’m so thankful to be here and the experience I’ve had.
“I don’t in any way, shape or form want to frame this like if he had this … that’s not what I’m saying. So, I think that ought to come from Carla. And that would be hard for me if I saw anything that came out like that, because that’s not what I’m saying. I think for Carla moving forward, I think that would be the way to hit that.”
You see it, don’t you?
“Significant” work on facilities to get UVA football where it needs to be.
“I don’t in any way, shape or form want to frame this like if he had this … that’s not what I’m saying.”
The money wasn’t coming in to get us to the next level.
And now, suddenly, it will be, once the money people get their guy.
If Jerry’s reporting on what is going on behind the scenes in this respect is accurate, and none of us have any reason to think that it’s not, because Jerry knows the right folks, this was a hit on Mendenhall, and on the rest of us proletarians who continued to donate to VAF, buy tickets to games, spend way too much time thinking about Virginia football, wasting our time and mental energy on what the rich people actively wanted to be a lost cause.
Basically, the monied elites made it clear that they weren’t going to write any more checks until he stepped down, and they got their guy in place.
Which would be an ugly look for UVA even if their guy was a sure-fire home-run hire.
That Anthony Poindexter, god love what he did as a player, would be on anybody’s radar as a sure-fire home-run hire is laughable.
I will always think Dex is the best player to ever put on a Virginia football uniform personally, but as a coach, the jury is very much still out.
He’s had one run at being a coordinator, an undistinguished three-year stint at UConn, that ended five seasons ago.
He was, in name, a co-coordinator at Purdue and Penn State, but didn’t have play-calling duties at either stop.
Again, god love the guy, he’s a position coach, one of a million, middle of the pack among them.
The next logical step for Poindexter, 45, would be a Power 5 coordinator job, and a couple of good years, at least, at that job, moving up the ladder, paying a few more dues.
There’s nothing on his resume right now to suggest that he’d flourish as a Power 5 head coach, which isn’t to say that he can’t succeed – just that, going for AP now is a reach, a huge reach.
I’m all for him getting a shot if it’s on merit.
This feels like the CIA overthrowing the democratically-elected government to install a puppet.
Sorry, but if things go down the way they’ve been described, not that anybody cares, but I’m out, done, forever.
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
