A reader asked me a few months ago what happened with Mike Green, who quietly left the UVA Football program in 2022, one month into Tony Elliott’s first season as head coach, before landing at Marshall, where he would go on to lead the country with 17 sacks in 2024.
Gotta concede here, what happened with Green leaving UVA was about as well-kept a secret as I’ve come across in recent memory.
And: it’s not good.
“There’s accusations out there,” Green said, addressing what led to his departure in a meeting with the media at the NFL Combine on Wednesday.
The “accusations” are accusations of sexual assault – two, both of which Green denies, emphasizing in his talk with reporters at the combine that he’s “done nothing wrong.”
“I’ve never been questioned. I’ve never been asked. Nobody ever asked me a question about what happened before I departed from Virginia. It was just accusations that caused me to leave,” Green said.
The Athletic reported on Wednesday that the first allegation against him occurred while he was still in high school (Lafayette High School, Williamsburg, Va.), and that because of that, he had to agree to adhere to a zero-tolerance policy to be admitted to UVA.
Which means: Bronco Mendenhall recruited him knowing what was out there.
Not a good look there on Bronco.
For the football part of this, Green committed to UVA in 2020 as a 6’4”, 215-pound tight end/linebacker, before transitioning to defensive end.
He only got 38 snaps at Virginia, as a true freshman in 2021, the final year of the Mendenhall era, before being dismissed in September of his sophomore season, in Year 1 of the Elliott era.
“I could have stayed at the university if I wanted to,” Green said on Wednesday. “After I got suspended, I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to go somewhere that I was able to lay down a foundation, and that’s what caused me to enter the transfer portal and go to Marshall.”
Green would become a star at Marshall, putting up massive numbers in 2024 – 17 sacks, 59 total QB pressures, 57 tackles and a 92.4 Pro Football Focus season grade.
He entered the 2025 NFL Draft process as a projected first-round pick, though you now have to wonder how the revelations about the sexual-assault allegations could impact his future.
Green addressed the sexual-assault allegations head-on, to his credit, I guess.
“I’m not worried at all,” Green said. “I have no concerns, and I have no problem with talking to these teams about it because I know who I am and I know the truth. Everybody else that thinks they know the truth, that’s not my concern right now.”
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Chris Graham
