SOUTHINGTON – Jim Mora recognized that his dual role as defensive coordinator was taking away from his first responsibility as head coach of the UConn football team, and decided to “fire” himself entering Year Three.
Mora realized he needed to be focused on other things in this new NIL and transfer portal-reliant era, so he handed the defensive reigns over to former Mississippi State DC Matt Brock.
“It was imperative that I get a good defensive coordinator so that I could manage things,” he said after Tuesday night’s UConn Coaches Road Show stop in Southington.
“I like being a head coach. The first year I liked fielding the defense, last year I felt a little overwhelmed. But with the changes now, and the new personalities, having to manage the team – and I have a very young staff, there’s not a guy on our staff that’s even 40 years old yet. It was just important to get someone good in so I could do really what I’m supposed to be doing, so I fired myself.”
The change allows him to be more available to everyone in the organization, rather than spending so much of his time in defensive meetings and risking a disconnect with the rest of the team.
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So far, the results have been positive.
With greater monetary support from booster Mike Burton and UConn’s NIL collectives, Mora and his staff were able to “be competitive” in the portal.
“We added 25 new players and I think they’re all really good players,” Mora said. “What’s exciting about the portal is that you add players that have played at this level, so you have a better feel for what they are going to be for you than you may have with a high school kid. I think the discouraging thing is what’s happening to high school recruiting, there’s a lot of kids that are getting left behind. But for us it’s been a real positive and it wouldn’t have happened without Mike and the people that he’s engaged.”
The program added 10 players since spring practices ended, which adds another layer of complication, but their experience has helped accelerate the process of mixing them in before preseason camp.
“Fortunately for us, our guys love to work,” Mora said. “They’re out on the field on their own all the time. We’ve been back for only a week and I don’t know if they’ve missed – maybe they weren’t coming in on Sunday – but other than that they were out there working on their own. And that’s the benefit of having great kids that aren’t entitled.”
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Perhaps the biggest get – which Mora credits, in large part, to that greater NIL investment – is quarterback Nick Evers, who came in the same day former starter Ta’Quan Roberson decided to exit via the portal.
The quarterback room, which also includes graduate student Joe Fagnano, who was named the starter entering last season before a season-ending shoulder injury early on, sophomore Tucker McDonald and true freshman Cole Welliver, has seen a significant improvement from when Mora first took the job during the 2021 season.
“There’s four guys in there that are all really good players… it’s a really solid room,” he said. “They can all spin it, they can all throw it well, they’re all good decision makers.”
Evers, who comes in after spending time at Oklahoma and Wisconsin but almost never getting an opportunity to play, is in position to compete for a starting spot with the Huskies.
“His arm talent is off the charts. He’s a 6-foot-3 guy that’ll weigh 205-210 pounds when the season starts and he runs a 4.5 (40-yard sprint), so he can take off and roll. He can deliver the ball on time, on target, moving out of the pocket to his right or his left. He’s been coached by some really good coaches at Oklahoma and at Wisconsin, so even though he hasn’t played a lot, he’s been exposed to really good coaching and really good competition,” Mora said.
The four quarterbacks have been able to bond in their limited time together, which impressed Evers.
“Nick even made that comment to me yesterday, he goes, ‘These guys just want to help me.’ That, to me, tells you your team’s healthy,” Mora said. “We’re lucky. We don’t have any entitled guys on our team. We’ve brought in guys from the Big Ten, the SEC and the Big 12 and all of them at some point will come up to me and say, ‘Wow, this is different. Guys here, they just embrace me, they’re glad I’m here.’ A guy from the SEC said, ‘The way we work is so different than we ever worked at my former school.'”
UConn has made the most of its situation as an independent, without the same level of NIL money to match that of power conference schools – “Control what you can control,” Mora said. “I’m trying my hardest to do that. So I don’t get discouraged. I recognize the challenges, but I don’t get discouraged.”
So far, so good.
And, of course, it helps that the independent school in the northeast comes with a national brand that is continuing to grow. Recruits know about UConn, particularly because of its 17 combined basketball championships, and are typically impressed by the football facilities when they get onto campus for a visit.
“I don’t know if you can quantify it, especially the basketball success because there’s so much visibility there,” Mora said. “When your women’s and men’s basketball teams are playing those big-time games, Final Four games, national championship games, in the tournament, prominent, repeating national champs, Geno (Auriemma) – just the visibility that it brings to the school and the name recognition, is a huge help. Huge help to us.”
