NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
Nov. 7—Bronco Mendenhall has won 138 games as a head coach. Entering this season, he’s made the postseason in 16 of 17 seasons leading BYU and Virginia, two different schools that found success under a similar approach — one that took some time to develop. At 58, he speaks in honest, measured tones about that fact.
“I think I’m a work in progress,” New Mexico’s head coach admitted during a press conference this week.
San Diego State’s Sean Lewis enters Friday with a 27-36 record as a head coach. He took on one of the hardest jobs in the country at Kent State and left with two bowl appearances and a winning record in conference play before what amounted to a year as Colorado’s offensive coordinator. At 38, he still has the same exuberant energy that propelled the historically moribund Golden Flashes to arguably the best era in school history.
“You got to be a little bit off to do anything worthwhile at an elite level,” he acknowledged in a press conference this week.
UNM has never won a Mountain West title in football. SDSU has won three. The Lobos (3-6, 2-3) have a 16-48 record since 2019; the Aztecs (3-5, 2-1) enter Friday with a 40-28 record in that same span. The expectations between both schools — if not the overall approaches between Mendenhall and Lewis — are vastly different.
But for the first time in a while, both programs will be more or less on the same ground when they take the field Friday. And because of that, both coaches have been tasked with balancing the demands of a rebuild with the immediacy of week-to-week results.
“Right now, San Diego State is critical,” Mendenhall said when asked about balancing both. “But it’s just the beginning. And these kids have a lot to play for — I think they believe, one at a time, they could finish really well.
“They’re not ruling anything out in terms of what and how…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/friday-storylines-mexico-san-diego-040100292.html
Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Publish date : 2024-11-08 04:01:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
