UCLA hired Jim L Mora as it's Head Football Coach on December 13th hoping he'll be the one to turn the program around after the ridiculously embarrassing 50-0 defeat to SC that led to the demise of Rick Neuheisel with good reason.
The bottom line is I like this hire a good amount. He has no prior ties to UCLA which is a must for the new coach; Toledo, Dorrell, and Neu were all prior UCLA assistants and those in house hires didn't pan out in the long run. Second he's been an NFL head coach and that works wonders with kids in recruiting as they all want to be in the league. And finally I love that he's a defensive minded coach, the entire PAC 12 outside of UCLA and UTAH have offensive minded coaches, it can't hurt to be a bit different from the rest. There are 3 things Mora needs to do if he's going to be the guy to turn UCLA around.
1.) Build a Staff - Mora has made some strong hires in the early going poaching Ace Recruiters such as OL Coach Adrian Klemm from SMU, RB Coach Steve Broussard from ASU, and DB Coach Demetrice Martin from Washington. Each of these three were considered the top recruiters on their respective staffs. Mora then hired OC and QB Coach Noel Mazzone from ASU who has led a huge turnaround in the Sun Devil Offense the past two years.
Coach Mora also decided to keep aboard Marques Tuiasosopo as TE Coach and Inoke Breckerfield as DL Coach even though the Defensive Line was one of the bigger disappointments of the 2011 Season. But Breckerfield has a ton of ties to Hawaiian recruiting as well as the Poly community so there is good reason for his staying. CJM still needs to hire a WR Coach, Special Teams Coach, LB Coach, and Defensive Coordinator to round out the staff.
2.) Recruit like a madman - CJM has already picked up 5 recruits since taking over landing WR/DB Taylor Lagace from Arcadia HS, LB Kenny Orjioke from Georgia, DB Marcus Rios, DB Ishmael Adams from Oaks Christian HS, and JUCO OL Alexandru Ceachir. The key here is going to be Mora signing some highly rated recruits while trimming the fat from current Rick Neuheisel commits. It was well known that barring a miracle CRN was going to be fired leading to more and more top recruits shunning UCLA and lesser sleeper recruits taking up those offers. Mora needs only to recruit top PAC 12 athletes.
3.) Change the Culture - This is the biggest challenge for CJM coming to UCLA. There is a strong culture of mediocrity and accepting middling results for UCLA Football. Part of the problem is that many consider UCLA to be a basketball school that does not truly care about winning in football, a belief rooted in the fact that facilities are not up to par and prior to CJM's large contract (2.4 million per year) UCLA was notoriously cheap with paying coaches and assistants.
Then there is ridiculous loser traditions such as going "Over the Wall", a tradition where UCLA players during bowl preparations ditch practice by jumping over the spaulding field wall. Thankfully Mora seems intent on
putting an end to that... The culture at UCLA needs to match the spend big to win big mentality that every other school is playing with if there is to be a chance of competing for PAC 12 Championships. Here's hoping Jim L Mora can do it.
