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About a month is all that remains before the Bronco Mendenhall era of Utah State football begins in earnest, when the Aggies open the 2025 season at home against UTEP.
From there, anything could happen. This season with an almost completely remade team, and in the near and distant future. Utah State football truly could go any way under Mendenhall over the next few years, with NIL and revenue sharing now a thing, plus USU’s impending move to the remade Pac-12 Conference.
Count former Green Bay Packers quarterback Kurt Benkert as one of the believers in Utah State under Mendenhall.
Benkert played two seasons for Mendenhall at Virginia, in 2016 and 2017, which just so happened to be the first two seasons of the Mendenhall era in Charlottesville.
The Cavaliers didn’t experience immediate success, winning just two games in Year 1. But in Year 2, things improved dramatically, with UVA winning six games. From there, UVA experienced multiple seasons that qualified as some of the best for the program in the last 30 years.
In a post on X on Sunday, Benkert waxed wistfully about that era of Virginia football. The Mendenhall era.
“Man I really miss UVA,” Benkert wrote. “We were so bad but we worked hard and (to be honest) had a better record than our talent level should have. We had a few NFL guys but the depth drop off made it tough down the stretch. When Bronco took over so many people transferred out that it made it so hard to compete, (especially) with the academic standards and what not. Definitely got it out the mud those few years and set it up for when (Bryce Perkins) took over and took them on a great run.
“The gap was just really hard to get over those early years but Bronco built it the right way.”
That Mendenhall was able to win at Virginia with less overall talent than the competition bodes well for the…
Source link : https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/07/28/kurt-benkert-bronco-mendenhall-success-virginia-utah-state-football/
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Publish date : 2025-07-29 02:00:00
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