UConn’s Mora announces his first recruiting class
‘Been a whirlwind’: Huskies coach taps into state prep schools
STORRS — Jim Mora’s most significant movement so far took place after he struck a deal to become UConn football coach while in Idaho, after he hooked up with his new team two days later in South Carolina and even after he appeared on the Storrs campus for the first time.
He has zigzagged Connecticut, recruiting while becoming and reof maining visible, effectively understanding that for anyone to embrace the potential of the program he was hired to fix, that program must first show faith in its situation and surroundings.
“It’s just been amazing,” Mora, who was hired Nov. 11, said Wednesday morning during a press conference at the Burton Family Football Complex to announce a 12-player recruiting class that continued to grow through the afternoon. “It’s been awesome. Every single second of it. There’s a tremendous amount of pride in this state for football. That has been very apparent to me in the people I’ve talked to. I want to acknowledge that. I believe it as well. I take pride. This is my state now as well. This is my school now as well. It’s just been inspiring. I can’t wait to get up in the morning and go again.”
Mora, 60, stressed the importance Connecticut ties — prep schools and high schools — to his vision for a program he has tried to cast in a different light. There was one conversation, he said, that every recruit was interested in having — about UConn being independent, with no conference affiliation.
“What I told them and what I truly believe and feel is, it just doesn’t matter,” Mora said. “It
doesn’t matter to me and, quite frankly, it shouldn’t matter to them. Yeah, being in a conference is great. You get a chance to play for a conference championship, and that’s great. And there’s an automatic bowl berth if you win that conference championship. But when you come to UConn, you get a chance to play up against some of the best football teams and programs on the biggest stages in football . ... All of those schools that we can put on our schedule are opportunities to compare ourselves to the best in college football on the big stage.”
When Mora first met up with the Huskies, they were at Clemson for what became a 44-7 loss. The class announced Wednesday, which will grow in the coming weeks, is what Mora hopes is the first building block toward being competitive. The Huskies are 10-50 the past five seasons.
The recruiting class, as of Wednesday afternoon, included five players with state ties: Connecticut’s Gatorade player of the year, Victor Rosa of Bristol Central, who will play running back and slot receiver in college; Ben Murawski, an offensive lineman from Harleysville, Pa., and St. Thomas More; Derek Spearman, a defensive back from Davidson, N.C., and Loomis Chaffee; Brady Wayburn, an offensive lineman from Gastonia, N.C., and Loomis; and Denzel Mountali, of Vancouver, B.C., and Loomis.
“We stayed local,” Mora said. “One of our focuses was giving a priority to this state. One of the things I learned in this recruiting cycle is that prep schools are a great source of talent. So we hit the
prep schools hard, as well as the high schools.”
At least two players — defensive linemen Donovan Branch of Chicago and Nate Voorhis of Stroudsburg, Pa. — committed to UConn under Randy Edsall, de-committed and got back on board after meeting with the new staff.
“We added some size and athleticism,” Mora said. “We wanted to get character young men. We wanted guys that love to play football, that are serious about their studies, that are accountable, dependable and trustworthy, that would be good teammates and have a sense of selflessness and yet they have an athletic arrogance to them.”
Of his message to recruits, Mora said, “We’re not really pitching anything. We bring them here for 48 hours and we just show them who we are. We show them the facilities and the support they’re going to have in their football lives, in their academic lives and in their lives as they move on with their career, whether that’s in the NFL, CFL or any path of business.”
Mora coached the NFL’s
Falcons in 2004-06 and the Seahawks in 2009. He was coach at UCLA in 2012-17.
“It’s been a whirlwind from being hired to trying to put together a staff, to addressing our team, then to be able to attack recruiting the way that we did,” Mora said. “When you come into a new situation, I think you have two choices. You can concede the class a little bit and start building towards the future or you can attack it and say we’re going to point towards now as we point towards the future.”
Mora started calling Connecticut high school coaches his first day on the job.
“I believe there is good talent in this state at the high school level, certainly, and the prep school level, definitely,” he said. “It’s just really important that we attack this state and develop really good relationships in this state and the coaches in this state see that this is a place where they want their young men to come and play football.”