Bronco Mendenhall: Athletic Hall of Fame

By Drayson Ball

Snow College is pleased to announce the addition of Bronco Mendenhall to the Athletics Hall of Fame as part of the 2023 inductee class. Mendenhall’s addition was announced by the Snow College Athletic Department last fall.

Mendenhall, a native of Alpine, Utah, played football for the Badgers in the mid-'80s. Mendenhall was a key piece of the 1985 team that capped a perfect 11-0 season with a national championship, the first in program history.

Following two seasons at Snow College, Mendenhall transferred to Oregon State to start for the Beavers as both a safety and a linebacker. He played two seasons at OSU before beginning his coaching career in 1989 with the Beavers.

After earning a master’s degree, Mendenhall returned to Ephraim to serve as the secondary coach and defensive coordinator for the Badgers from 1991-92 under fellow 2023 Hall of Fame inductee Paul Tidwell.

Over the next 12 years, he bounced around college football serving as the defensive coordinator for Northern Arizona University (1993-94) and OSU (1995-96). He was hired as the secondary coach at Louisiana Tech in 1997 before becoming the defensive coordinator at the University of New Mexico from 1998-2002.

Mendenhall was then named the defensive coordinator for Brigham Young University in 2003. He was elevated to head coach two seasons later and would serve in that capacity for 11 seasons. During his time with the Cougars, he was one of only 11 programs to reach a bowl game each season. The Cougars won six of those games, second only to Florida State over that time.

Within just two seasons, Mendenhall, who took over a 2004 team that won just five games, led the Cougars to an 11-win season culminating in a Mountain West Conference Championship and a victory over the University of Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl. BYU won 11 more games the following season, repeated as MWC Champs, and once again won the Las Vegas Bowl, this time over UCLA.

Mendenhall accumulated a 99-43 overall record and a 39-9 mark within conference place for the Cougars over 11 seasons. He moved on from BYU in 2015 and took over as the head coach at the University of Virginia in 2016.

During his six seasons at Virginia, Mendenhall helped lead the Cavaliers to victory over South Carolina in the Belik Bowl in 2018 and an ACC Division Championship the following season.

Over his 17 seasons as a head coach, Mendenhall has racked up an overall record of 135-81 overall record and a 61-36 mark within conference play. He has won seven bowl games and three conference titles in his tenure. The 135 career victories rank among the top100 all-time in Division I.

After stepping away from the UV football program in 2021, Mendenhall was named the head football coach at New Mexico in December 2023. He will take over a program that has gone just 9-17 over its past three seasons.

Mendenhall, who has always let his values as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints direct his coaching philosophy, says he hasn’t found anything as impactful in the development of young men as college football. It is the relationships and memories, not the wins or losses, he makes with his players that, in his words, “trump everything.”

Mendenhall has put more than 80 athletes in the NFL during his 17+ seasons as a head coach. Wherever Mendenhall goes, winning, both on and off the field, is sure to follow. His success is, as he would put it, ‘earned, not given.’