UConn has its new man. About two months after Randy Edsall stepped down, the school announced late last week that Jim Mora would become the new football coach at season's end. A longtime college and NFL coach, the 59-year-old brings a wealth of knowledge and know-how to campus as he tries to rebuild a struggling program.
A recognizable name to most, Mora signed a five-year deal worth $1.5 million annually, plus incentives. As he makes his way around campus over the next few weeks, here are some fast facts on UConn's newest football coach:
He's a football lifer. His dad, of course, is the elder Jim Mora, the former head coach of the Saints and Colts (he's the "Playoffs? Playoffs?!" guy, for you younger folks). So it's no surprise that upon his graduation from Washington in 1984 he immediately went into coaching, and hasn't really stopped. At either the NFL or collegiate levels he was on a coaching staff every year from '84 through 2009, took a few years off, then was the coach at UCLA from 2012-17, and has worked in television since.
His resume is on the defensive side of the ball. His first true assistant coaching job came with the Chargers in 1985 as a defensive quality control assistant, and that's where he's lived. A former defensive back himself, he eventually became then-San Diego's DB coach, held the same roles in New Orleans and San Francisco before the Niners promoted him to defensive coordinator in 1999.
He's been a head coach three different times. Mora's first head coaching job came with the Mike Vick-era Falcons from 2004-06. In his first year Atlanta went 11-5 and went to the NFC Championship Game, though he was let go after following it up with 8-8 and 7-9 campaigns -- even if he had stayed, the Vick dogfighting controversy would have put him in a no-win situation.
An assistant in Seattle in 2007 and 2008, he was then tabbed as Mike Holmgren's replacement upon the latter's retirement, but Mora lasted just one year in Seattle, going 5-11 in '09. His only college head coaching experience came at UCLA, where he was at the helm of the Bruins from 2012-17. He won a Pac-12 South championship in his first year, won 10 games in back-to-back years in '13 and '14, and routinely brought in highly ranked recruiting classes. The final three years, though, UCLA hovered around .500 and after a third straight loss to USC in 2017 he was let go.
Despite just five years of college experience, Mora is a good recruiter. On Saturday against Clemson he was on the phones calling Connecticut high school coaches, plus committed recruits he'll have to try and keep. And, of course, he'll have to surely re-recruit some players already on the team, but he appears up for the task. In his first season in Westwood he took UCLA from the high-40s to the 12th-ranked recruiting class, then had a program-best No. 11 class the following year in 2013. Expectations shouldn't be *that* high for UConn, of course. But if he can get the Huskies into the 60s or 70s ranking-wise and hit the transfer portal hard (which he's already said he's going to do), the talent will start to show on the field.
What could he bring scheme-wise to UConn? We already mentioned his defensive pedigree, and whether coincidence or not his first coordinator at UCLA was current UConn interim coach Lou Spanos. And his first offensive coordinator? Noel Mazzone, who was brought on staff as an offensive assistant for a few weeks this season. That's not to say either will be on staff come 2022, but Mazzone in particular shows a preference for an up-tempo, spread passing attack, which (obviously) we haven't seen at Connecticut with any consistency since Dan Orlovsky.