As Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall faces the prospect of starting a transfer quarterback for the second time in three years, the landscape has changed considerably.
Kurt Benkert, who started 23 of 25 games for Virginia over two seasons, wasn’t on UVa’s grounds for Mendenhall’s first spring practice in 2016.
Benkert was completing his degree work at East Carolina, a requirement if he planned to play immediately as a graduate transfer. Morever, Benkert was coming off a knee operation that had prevented him from playing for ECU in 2015.
With spring practice scheduled to start Tuesday, Mendenhall didn’t hesitate to inform reporters Friday that junior-college transfer Bryce Perkins from Arizona Western would be working with the first unit.
Perkins began his college career at Arizona State, where he was redshirted as a freshman in 2015. He was injured in the preseason in 2016 and transferred to Arizona Western, which reached the JUCO national championship game in 2017.
Perkins, who has at least two years of remaining eligibility, has been in Charlottesville since the start of winter workouts in January.
When asked for impressions of Perkins, Mendenhall shared comments made to him by running back Jordan Ellis, whose status as a team leader is reflected in the first choice he has earned for number selection throughout his career.
“He mentioned to his position coach today, coach Mark Atuaia, that ‘coach, he really fits here,’ ” Mendenhall said. “He sets the standard by leading from the front. In sprints, he’s ahead. In conditioning, he’s ahead. If he’s in, he’s immersed. And if he’s not in, he’s completely immersed.
“From a physical, mental and leadership standpoint, he looks like the ideal fit for UVa, with that assessment being prior to playing football. The closest comparison is to Taysom Hill [from Brigham Young] in terms of the athleticism, the leadership and the competitive spirit.
“It’s early to say yet in terms of the yield and the outcome he is able to produce and the durability, but in athleticism and style of play, that’s probably the closest comparison.”
Perkins (6 foot 3, 215 pounds) will be joined in the spring by sophomore quarterback Lindell Stone, who played briefly in one game as a freshman in 2017, and January enrollee Brennan Armstrong.
A fourth quarterback, Matthew Merrick, is ailing and may not be available until April. Merrick, the son of 1980s UVa wideout Nick Merrick, began his college career at Texas.
Protection could be an issue for UVa’s 2018 quarterbacks, based on the departure of five offensive linemen, including a pair of veterans who came to Virginia last year as graduate transfers.
Virginia already has landed two graduate transfers for the 2018 season, offensive guard Marcus Applefield from Rutgers and defensive lineman Dylan Thompson from Ohio State. Applefield started 10 games for Rutgers last year.
“It’s our intent and it’s likely there will be another grad transfer announced relatively soon,” said Mendenhall, adding that there might be two more. “We’ve held spots intentionally to do that. Whether we can do that or not, we’ll see.”
For the time being, he’ll settle for having Perkins.
“There’s no way to quantify that,” Mendenhall said. “It’s a huge, huge advantage [for him] to not only be here for spring practice but for the offseason.
“To be acclimated into the training, into the team, into the culture and having an early install into what the system might look like … it really accelerates the growth by an entire year.”