EAST HARTFORD — Jim Mora walked off the turf at Rentschler Field Saturday, leaving satisfied fans behind him and secure in the knowledge, whether he’d voice it or not, that he has done what he was hired to do.
Roughly 70,000 fans acquired tickets, and most of them showed up for these last two home games, a thrilling win over Duke and the more matter-of-fact, 26-16 victory over Air Force. Does it cross Mora’s mind how far he has taken UConn football from the barren place he found it?
“No, not until the job is completed,” Mora said. “This is not completed. We play FAU a week from today, so any distractions that get in the way of our focus on that game are just unacceptable. If I’m going to preach that to the players, then I have be able to do it myself.”
How about stepping back, even just to exhale and admire the canvas on which he has been painting on for four years?
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“At some point, we’ll look and say, we’ve got something going here and we’ll keep building on it,” he said, “but honestly, it’s not something I’m capable of doing. I’ve learned it’s a poison.”
The reality of college athletics is that programs climbing from the bottom reach a certain point, and then, look out. They come to poach your coach.
In Connecticut, we are old pros with franchises bolting, but not coaches. The coaches who have built UConn’s successful programs have stayed and sustained them. Jim Calhoun never seriously considered leaving until he retired after 26 years. Surely there have been well-heeled universities who coveted what UConn has done with women’s basketball, but Geno Auriemma remains after 41 years. There isn’t a top-shelf baseball program in America that hasn’t taken note of the what Jim Penders has done in the Northeast, but he’s an alum and Husky blue still runs through his veins. Maybe succeeding his mentor, Jerry York at Boston College, was a dream for Mike Cavanaugh at one time, but when York retired, Cavanaugh re-upped and is still leading UConn hockey to new levels — note the sweep of Northeastern this weekend.
And as you may remember, Dan Hurley turned down the Lakers.
So if there is lingering bitterness over Randy Edsall’s awkward departure after the Fiesta Bowl in 2011, it’s because that is really the only time we have experienced what other college programs experience all the time. Come to think of it, Edsall at least stayed and coached the bowl game, most do not even do that. This is stone cold business.
All of this is to brace UConn fans for the unsettling reality that it could happen again. Or to put it another way, if you were an athletic director at a school looking to restore a foundering football program, wouldn’t Jim Mora be high on your list? The Huskies (8-3, with three OT losses) have won 19 of their last 26 games, and have a second straight bowl game, maybe against a brand-name opponent, coming up next month.
Randy Cross, long-time NFL player and football analyst, was throwing around the possibility of Mora moving on during the UConn-Air Force telecast and no one should be surprised or outraged. After leading UConn, literally, from the bottom of the FBS barrel in every statistical category, historically and increasingly bad between 2016 and 2021, when they finished 1-11 and lost nearly every game by 30 or more points, Mora may have taken UConn football as far as he can take it. At age 63, if he is going to take one more crack at competing for great goals, in college or pro football, now would be the time. Given his NFL pedigree and the resourcefulness he’s shown in procuring and developing talent at UConn, the Giants could do a lot worse and, recent history shows, they very likely will when they name Brian Daboll’s replacement.
Of more clear and present danger to UConn’s hopes of keeping Mora, there are nine power conference jobs open, with a few more probably coming. So far, Mora has not been mentioned as a major candidate for them, as these things develop through back channels. If he gets that chance and takes it, who can blame him? He has put UConn in the best position he could to earn an ACC or Big 12 invitation, but it hasn’t happened yet.
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Trickier would be a second wave. Several of those power conference schools will hire successful coaches from Group of Five, or Six, conferences, which will create openings there. Would one of them ante up to get Mora out of his contract, which run through 2028, and out of Storrs? In that scenario, it could come down to where Mora wants to live and coach. College football gets more attention in other parts of the country, yes, but only if you’re at certain schools. They don’t love the game anywhere any more than they love it in Texas, but that doesn’t mean Rice gets all that much attention. They love the game in Michigan, if you’re at Michigan or Michigan State, not in the MAC. In a Group of Five, or Six, there would be a conference title to play for, but that would be about all. And how relevant would such a title be?
The mark Mora has made at UConn is real, it is unique, and he has never been shy about saying that he likes it here. Out of football four seasons after being fired at UCLA, Mora has been rejuvenated by UConn as much as the other way around. He should be able to coach the Huskies as long as he wants to, but may soon be faced with a decision. He has, in fact, earned that.
The ball was dropped when Edsall left for Maryland in 2011, and it set UConn football back a decade. That can’t happen again. If Mora were to leave, AD David Benedict can at least search for a coach with evidence this is not the dead-end job many believed it was in 2021. He and Mora and the players have proven UConn can win, can develop players, draw fans to an off-campus stadium and offer a worthwhile college football experience. Maintaining momentum with future coaches will be precarious, but possible. There are promising young coaches, Gordon Sammis and Matt Brock, on Mora’s staff.
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As Mora talked of next week’s season finale at Florida Atlantic, he extolled the trickiness of Air Force’s mis-direction running game, how hard it is to figure out. “Do we have any more academies coming up?” he asked.
Benedict reminded him UConn has a game at Air Force next season. “Well, we’ll enjoy this one and worry about next year’s game next year,” Mora said.
That would be a good way for UConn fans to look at things, too.