Is UVA football coach Bronco Mendenhall being sabotaged by admissions?

Marvin Zanders has a degree from Missouri, just got into Vanderbilt, but the admissions folks at UVA said, no dice.

And so Bronco Mendenhall learned a little more how hard it will be to rebuild the Virginia football program.

“I was counting on him, had built that into our succession planning there. In that particular case, and that particular process, I’m learning as I go, as one of the things to be considered,” Mendenhall told reporters at the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte last week.

Zanders graduated from Missouri as a redshirt sophomore with a degree in sports management. He was planning to enroll in the Curry School of Education at UVA.

As a grad transfer, he would have been eligible immediately, and the plan was to have him back up Kurt Benkert in 2017 with an eye toward Zanders being the starter in 2018.

The loss of Zanders leaves Virginia razor-thin at quarterback. After Benkert, the depth chart has redshirt freshman De’Vante Cross, who also saw reps in the spring at wide receiver, and true freshman Lindell Stone.

The Zanders story is reminiscent of the recruiting class that former UVA coach Al Groh had back in the mid-‘aughts that had eight kids left on the outside looking in by the admissions folks.

My inclination back then was to think that Groh was using the admissions troubles as an excuse as the program went down in flames around him.

Could it have been, though, that the ongoing battles between athletics and academics claimed Groh as a casualty, with Mendenhall next in the crosshairs?

Mendenhall, for his part, isn’t playing the blame game. Yet.

“Marvin ended up not being admissible to UVA. That, in and of itself, is the reason (he’s not here),” the coach said. “I love Marvin. He’s a really good player and a good person. As I’m learning about the University of Virginia, sometimes there’s more to admissions than just what I think. I don’t hold any grudges about the institution.”

Story by Chris Graham