HARTFORD, Conn. — UConn has its new football coach.
Jim L. Mora, who coached the Seattle Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons in the NFL and UCLA in the major college ranks, was hired to take over the Huskies' struggling independent program on Thursday. Mora will become the 32nd head coach in the program’s history.
“I am excited to have the opportunity to become the head football coach at the University of Connecticut,” Mora said in a statement released by the university. “UConn possesses a nationally-recognized academic and athletics brand and I am thrilled to become a member of the community that makes up UConn Nation. This program is loaded with potential, and I look forward to getting to know the student-athletes on the team and am eager to get to work.”
Mora, 59, is the son of longtime NFL coach Jim E. Mora, a successful coach still remembered for his press conference rants, especially the one in which he scoffed at a reporter asking about the playoffs. He emerged as a top candidate for UConn in recent days.
“Getting to know Jim Mora over the last several days has been a terrific experience,” UConn director of athletics David Benedict said. “Jim is a proven winner, a man of integrity, and he possesses the experience and the energy to lead our football program back to success. Jim is excited and undaunted by this challenge, and we both know that this program has great potential. I’m certain that, under Coach Mora’s leadership, UConn football will once again realize that potential.”
Mora signed a five-year contract worth $1.5 million during his first year. The agreement also includes performance incentives potentially worth $200,000 per year. He will join the UConn program immediately as a hands-off assistant coach, to begin his evaluation and recruiting, and officially become the head coach on Nov. 28, the day after the season finale vs. Houston. Interim coach Lou Spanos, who was Mora’s defensive coordinator at UCLA in 2012-13, will remain in charge of game-planning until that time.
The UConn job opened when Randy Edsall abruptly announced his plan to retire after a loss to Holy Cross in Week 2. The next day, Benedict and Edsall decided to make his departure immediate and Spanos was named interim coach. The Huskies (1-8) play at Clemson on Saturday.
Benedict wanted to have his new coach in place Dec. 1, which may have been problematic for coaches working in the NFL right now, such as former Temple and Miami head coach Al Golden, who is with Cincinnati Bengals, and former Penn State associate head coach Sean Spencer, a Hartford native who is with the New York Giants. Golden, Spencer and former UConn offensive coordinator Joe Morehead, now at Oregon, were on UConn’s radar, according to multiple sources.
UConn has not had a winning season since making the Fiesta Bowl in 2011 under Edsall, who left for Maryland after that game. They have since had five coaches, Paul Pasqualoni, interim T.J. Weist, Bob Diaco, Edsall a second time, and Spanos.
Mora, who has been out of coaching since 2017 and working in TV, was available now and emerged as a candidate quickly.
“I am impressed by Coach Mora’s tremendous wealth of experience and achievement professionally and in intercollegiate football,” said UConn’s interim president Andrew Agwunobi in a school statement. “He is a true coach on- and off-the-field, and that degree of dedication will greatly benefit our student-athletes in his charge. I enthusiastically join UConn Nation in welcoming him to Storrs and look forward to his leadership of our program in the years ahead.”
Mora, who graduated from Washington in 1984, has been in coaching since 1985, when he joined Don Coryell’s staff with the San Diego Chargers. He joined his father as defensive backs coach with the New Orleans Saints in 1992 and was the defensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers by the end of the 1990s.
He was hired as head coach by the Falcons in 2004, and led them to an NFC South division title and to the NFC Championship Game, where they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. Atlanta went 8-8 and 7-9 the next two years, and Mora was fired. Owner Arthur Blank was annoyed late in 2006 when Mora mused in a radio interview that he wanted to coach at his alma mater.
Mora went on to Seattle as an assistant and took over for retiring Mike Holmgren in 2009 but was fired after a 5-11 first season.
Starting at UCLA in 2012, Mora led the Bruins to a 37-16 record and bowl appearances in each of his first four years but was fired after back-to-back losing seasons in 2017. Mora earned as much as $3.5 million per year during his time at UCLA, twice what he’ll be making to get back into coaching at UConn. He had three years and $12 million left on his contract when he was fired by the Seahawks.
Between coaching stints, Mora has been a TV analyst, with NBC, the NFL Network and, most recently, with ESPN’s college football coverage.
