You can be sad, angry, bitter that Jim Mora is leaving UConn, or you could be glad he came along when he did.
That’s a Dr. Suess concept, but it certainly applies here, for if the measure of success is leaving a place better than one found it, Mora’s four years as football coach were a smashing success, indeed. Replacing him will be hard, but if UConn gets this right the good vibes can continue to rattle at Rentschler Field.
The news broke after midnight Tuesday, Mora and Colorado State were close to a deal. By daybreak, UConn AD David Benedict got out front and announced Mora’s departure. However one feels, no one should be surprised. Coaches that deliver the way Mora did in Connecticut are in high demand, and with a lot of talent running out of eligibility, equaling the nine wins the Huskies got in 2025 will be difficult in 2026. But Mora leaves a template for success and no unfinished business, unless you were dreaming of the … wait for it … the playoffs. (Playoffs?)
Colorado State, as a Mountain West program headed to the new-look Pac 12, is not in a power conference, either, so it could be perceived as a lateral move. However Mora, 64, loves skiing in the Rockies — that’s where UConn found him, out of coaching and skiing in Idaho — so this may be a move based mainly on where he wants to live. He can write his own lift ticket, he’s earned it.
UConn football coach Jim Mora leaving for Colorado State; coached Huskies for four seasons
In a perfect college football world, coaching hirings and player transfers would be held in abeyance until after the season. But in the world in which we live, college coaches leave with a bowl game, even playoff games, still to be played, and players opt out of them to preserve themselves for the pros, or the portal. So UConn will get its bowl assignment and prepare for it with offensive coordinator Gordon Sammis in charge, and perhaps auditioning. It is what it is.
Meanwhile, Mora only has to revive Colorado State, which should be a piece of holiday pie after he exhumed UConn, 1-11 in 2021, 10-50 between 2016 and ’21. As an independent program, it was considered an impossible task and every dreary loss brought more calls to abandon the football altogether.
And how far have the Huskies come? When Mora got to Connecticut, they were neck-and-neck with UMass as the two worst teams of all 130 in FBS, the numbers so abysmal they looked like typos. UMass is in a conference, but still down there. UConn and Penn State received the same four points in the last AP poll.
How did it happen? Mora was uniquely fit for the job. He was overqualified, yet undervalued and hungry to prove he could still coach, four years after being fired at UCLA. With his NFL experience, he knew how to put teams together quickly, and assess free agent talent. Every change in college athletics the last few years played to his strengths and his experience.
It culminated with 20 wins in his last 27 games, including three against ACC teams, and none of the losses were blowouts. Mora dragged UConn to the top of “group of six” conference teams, even though they are not in a conference. The long-hoped-for invitation to join the ACC or Big 12 hasn’t come yet, but UConn is far better positioned to hope for it today.
Be glad all of this happened, but now Mora is gone and it’s all about what comes next. In 2009 and ’10, Randy Edsall led UConn to a win at Notre Dame, victory in a bowl over South Carolina, a conference championship and an appearance in the Fiesta Bowl. He left after UConn’s loss to Oklahoma.
Rather than stay in house, promote offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, UConn’s hierarchy went for experienced Paul Pasqualoni. A proven head coach with deep Connecticut ties? Sounded perfect. The results were disastrous. What if UConn could hire a coordinator from a national power, considered the top assistant in all America? Great hire? Meet Bob Diaco, who “won the press conference,” and not much else. So why not bring back the coach he knew how to get things done at UConn? Thus launched Randy Edsall, 2.0.
Conversely, another 60-year-old coach, with big time jobs in his rear view mirror, would have seemed the last thing UConn needed, but Mora, while he was not shy about calling for more and more resources, ultimately took what he had and made the absolute most of it.
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The moral, it’s the person you hire, not the resume or birth certificate.
That is where UConn needs to get this right. Moorhead’s been around the block a few times and is maybe a bit worse for wear, but he’s slowly started winning some games at Akron. Maybe he’s the guy. If UConn goes for the really big name, that really big name better understand exactly what he is getting into, just as Mora did.
Sammis has been impressive as offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at UConn, and Mora has been singing his praises. He helped a former FCS quarterback, Joe Fagnano, develop into one of the national’s leading passers. UConn has a receiver, Skyler Bell, on the cusp of winning his position’s most prestigious national honors and a 1,000-yard rusher in Norwalk’s Cam Edwards.
Sammis’ offense has been imaginative, entertaining and explosive. It will be interesting to see if he can hold the squad together, prevent mass opt-outs and get the Huskies ready to play a bowl game in three or four weeks. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the team is in Sammis’ hands, as is Mora’s blueprints.
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Benedict got it right with Dan Hurley, when the proud men’s basketball culture was falling apart. He got it right with Mora, when the football program’s very survival was in the balance. He’s made other astute coaching hires, too.
So his track record suggests Benedict knows what kind of football coach UConn needs and where to find him. The next coach will not have all of Mora’s unique attributes for the job, but the one he must have is that same unshakeable, can-do spirit.
Thanks to Mora, who has shown a coach can win at UConn, that it’s not a deadend, career-killer, Benedict will have options. And those options will be scrutinized and debated because Jim Mora’s greatest parting gift to UConn football is this: People care again.