Bronco Mendenhall is on the radar in Oregon State coaching search

As Oregon State ramps up their search for a new football coach, Bronco Mendenhall is on their radar.

Earlier in what is now a 1-10 season, Gary Andersen abruptly left his post as head coach at Oregon State. Since then Rick Neuheisel and Les Miles have let it be known they’re interested in the job, directly or indirectly, but neither guy really stands out as a serious candidate.

But a serious candidate with a notable name and a resume has surfaced. John Canzano of The Oregonian has listed Bronco Mendenhall as a person of interest in Oregon State’s coaching search.

Mendenhall is in his second season as head coach at Virginia. The Cavaliers are bowl-eligible (6-5) this year, for the first time since 2011, after going 2-10 in his first season.

But Mendenhall is best-known for a long and very successful run at BYU, where he was 99-43 over 11 seasons with a bowl berth each year. He also played at Oregon State (1986-1987), and started his coaching career there in 1989 before coming back as defensive line coach (1995) and defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach (1996).

The Virginia job felt like an odd fit for Mendenhall when he abruptly left BYU to take that job after the 2015 season. He even coached in BYU’s bowl game before leaving for Charlottesville, which is pretty rare for a college coach to do before taking a new job on the typical timeline.

Mendenhall presumably still has some recruiting ties in the western part of the country, or he can surely find assistants to help him fill that gap. It would be a lateral move, at best and setting money aside, to go from Virginia to Oregon Sate. But a job in the Pac-12 looks like a good fit for Mendenhall, who is a Utah native and hadn’t had a coaching job east of the Mississippi before going to Virginia.

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