How Jim Mora took UConn from rock bottom to a bowl game in one year
When Mora took over, UConn hadn't won more than three games since 2015. Now, it's made one of the nation's most shocking turnarounds.
theathletic.com
Jim Mora says this isn’t about proving people wrong or a chip on the shoulder. He doesn’t want to say he told you so.
But he also does want to say he told you so. After taking UConn to its first bowl game in seven years, in his first year as the coach, he’s earned that right.
“I didn’t think I should have been fired at UCLA,” Mora said. “I thought they made a mistake. I still think they made a mistake.”
Rarely has a 6-6 record with a bowl appearance been more impressive or surprising, and Mora is the director. The Huskies are preparing for Monday’s Myrtle Beach Bowl against Marshall, the first bowl game for a group of players who have experienced a college career like few others.
UConn had been at the bottom of the FBS, losing to UMass and Holy Cross and finishing with a 1-11 record last year (that one win came against Yale). The Huskies won four total games from 2018 to 2021. The 2018 UConn defense was statistically the worst in college football history, setting FBS records in points (50.4) and yards (617.4) allowed per game. They didn’t play in 2020, the first FBS team to cancel its season due to the pandemic, and then-head coach Randy Edsall left the team for Florida for several months. He resigned two games into the 2021 season.
When Mora took the job last November, friends asked him, What the hell are you doing?
He had been in the process of moving his life from California to his home in Sun Valley, Idaho. He was newly engaged. He went hiking, mountain biking or fly-fishing every day. He had plenty of money after more than three decades in coaching.
So what was Mora doing taking the UConn job?
The son of Jim E. Mora, an NFL head coach for 15 years, didn’t like going out on his back. He didn’t like that his coaching career had seemingly ended in his late 50s with a loss to USC in 2017.
“I had a void,” the younger Mora said. “I had unfinished business. This is what I’ve done my entire life, football, and I didn’t like how it ended at UCLA.”
In a season of unexpected turnarounds, from Kansasto Duke to TCU, UConn’s run to a bowl game is perhaps the most stunning.
Edsall resigned two games into the 2021 season but hoped to finish the year. That didn’t go over well inside the program, and he reversed course and left the next day. It ended a disastrous second stint in the role but gave athletic director David Benedict plenty of time to talk with a slew of candidates. After a few virtual calls with Mora, Benedict flew to Sun Valley on a one-way plane ticket for an unusually immersive interview experience. Benedict spent four days with Mora, which included the coach having virtual calls with various stakeholders and search committee members, including Connecticut governor Ned Lamont.
Leaning on the counter in Mora’s kitchen toward the end of the week, Benedict finally said, “So do you want this thing or what?’”
Fans were surprised but largely ecstatic. Mora was the most accomplished coach to ever take the reins of the program, as a former NFL head coach for two teams who also had a pretty good run at UCLA. UConn’s football history dates back to 1896, but the program has rarely made much noise outside the Northeast. It spent 50 years in the Yankee Conference, winning 15 conference championships. It moved up from what was then Division I-AA to I-A in 2000 in Edsall’s first stint as head coach. He found success, winning two conference titles. The Huskies made the 2011 Fiesta Bowl as Big East champs with an 8-4 record. They lost to Oklahomaand Edsall didn’t even fly back with the team, instead taking the Maryland job.
That set off a decade of despair, save for a 6-7 blip season in 2015. UConn was left behind in the last round of conference realignment. Former Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo said in 2011 that BC didn’t want UConn in the ACC. The Huskies stayed in the reformed American Athletic Conference but eventually left for the non-football Big East in 2020, delighting basketball fans but leaving football in independence purgatory and fan apathy hard to overcome.
Mora flew directly from Idaho to Clemson for UConn’s next game after taking the job, giving him a few weeks to observe the team in-season before he took over. When he took the reins for real, Mora felt refreshed. At UCLA, where he posted a respectable 46-30 record from 2012 to 2017, Mora had trouble dividing time between his team and his kids. He lived 45 minutes from campus in Manhattan Beach. Now at UConn, there are no kids around, and he practically lives on campus, in a house he maintains is haunted. A “College GameDay” investigation determined … maybe.
