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Jim Mora, UCLA head coach, flirted with UW, his alma mater, before agreeing to return to UCLA. To earn his agreement, UCLA gave him a big raise and promised to give more money for his assistants and work on facility upgrades. Is the football monopoly in LA at Westwood now? How do you feel about Mora staying at UCLA?
Sam Fielder: Certainly Mora staying at UCLA is a coup for them (albeit a kind of expensive one but hey, if you're winning what's a few million here and there?) for now, but as many commenters and posters have said, you can't tell the future as we all learned with Tedford. So yeah, the LA football monopoly is in Westwood right now, but I'd venture to say it may look pretty different in 5 years, or even less. So for now, UCLA has made a good move, but we'll see how it all plays out.
Ruey Yen: I think Jim Mora ia an okay but not great coach. While it would have been much more chaotic and fun to have more of a Pac-12 coaching musical chair had Mora bolted for Seattle, a long term extension to a slightly above average (and possibly overrated) head coach by a Cal rival is fine with me.
Berkelium97: I'm impressed that he turned down a boatload of money from his dream employer. I appreciate his integrity and loyalty. Unfortunately this means UCLA remains a strong program and the UW vacancy was open to someone like Chris Petersen. Had Mora moved to UW, it is not a foregone conclusion that he would immediately be as successful as he was at UCLA. And Guerrero may not have made another solid hire. So the conference is stronger as a result, which means it will be that much more difficult for us to climb out of the Pac-12 basement.
TwistNHook: Mora appears to have UCLA going in the right direction. If he had left, I think it definitely could have stunted that growth. Fundamentally, him staying seems to have only strengthened them up further, especially given the upgrades for the assistant coaches/facilities. I fear that UCLA has only gotten stronger with this move.
Nick Kranz: I'd just like to note that I (and I think, most people) thought that the Mora hire was one of the weaker hires from two years ago. I think most of us panned the Graham hire at Arizona State too. We R Dum.
Avinash Kunnath: Yeah, Mora probably thought hard about Washington, but it would be really silly to leave UCLA considering the incredible talent he's managed to accrue in two years. The Bruins have had the best recruiting class in the Pac-12 two years running, and they will be prohibitive favorites to win the South next year (ASU had a great year, but I feel like they missed their best Rose Bowl chance this year). They return almost their entire offense, a great deal of their defense, a bunch of talented freshmen, and still came a few plays here and there from repeating as Pac-12 South champions.
I'm not sure about Mora as a coach, but he has assembled an upper-echelon staff, and has had the Bruins are knocking on the door two straight seasons. Next year we'll see if the coaching staff they've assembled will convert that talent into a conference title.
