In 1970, Jacksonville University made a surprising run all the way to the NCAA men’s basketball national championship game. Led largely by future NBA Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore, who finished his NBA career in Boston, as well as Rex Morgan, who also became a Celtic, the independent upstart Dolphins couldn’t upset Sidney Wicks and UCLA in College Park, MD. The Bruins won by 11 and captured their fourth championship in a row and sixth title in seven seasons. 

Jacksonville finished that season with a 27-2 mark, with losses at Florida State and at the hands of the legendary John Wooden and the aforementioned national champion UCLA juggernaut. And their head coach Joe Williams parlayed that remarkable run into another coaching job with… Furman? 

Forget the fact that Williams would go on to lead the Paladins to five NCAA tournaments in eight seasons before finishing his coaching career with the Seminoles. When he left Jacksonville for Greenville, S.C., Furman had never reached an NCAA tournament, let alone the Final Four stage that he had just walked off as a national runner-up. 

On paper, the next, better job doesn’t always appear to be a promotion and can, on the surface, often resemble a lateral move or even a step down. 

Which brings us to college sports in our modern day, and in this next case, more specifically, college football. Whether it’s now or then, at the end of the day, the point is that coaches leave. That’s what they do. So as much as it can feel like a head-scratcher that Jim L. Mora is westward bound for Colorado State, as ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported in the wee hours of this Nov. 26 morning, it’s what people in his line of work have always done since the beginning of the sport. 

Walter Camp left Yale for Stanford. Pop Warner and John Heisman coached seven and eight schools, respectively. Even Amos Alonzo Stagg, after 41 years at the helm of University of Chicago, didn’t retire with the Maroons, and instead, at age 70, moved to the West Coast and continued coaching, at Pacific, after being forced out. 

Mora did incredible things at UConn. In four seasons, he went 27-23 (1-1 in bowls) and reached bowl eligibility three times. The last couple seasons, especially, were a dream. From nine wins and a Fenway Bowl victory last season, to nine more this year and no losses in regulation, the interest in Mora was bound to happen. 

Mora got the most out of his players. Quarterback Joe Fagnano threw 28 touchdowns and one interception in 12 games, kickstarting a Heisman campaign. Wide receiver Skyler Bell, who has totaled 101 receptions for 1,276 yards and 13 touchdowns (and no, as amazing as that is, it doesn’t eclipse Donald Brown’s 2008 season of 2,083 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns), is among three finalists for the Biletnikoff Award. And if the resumes were considered blindly solely based on the numbers, he’d be a unanimous winner. Other schools look at that meteoric rise of the team and its players and want to hire away the coach. It’s an annual practice. We should be flattered and take it as a compliment. 

Still, leaving UConn for a Power 4 school would make more sense and hurt less. He’s from the West Coast and has worked most of his coaching life out that way. He famously had a house in Idaho before taking the job at UConn moving to a haunted house in Storrs. He’s an in-shape, active guy, and there are no shortage of trails and outdoor activity in Colorado. So considering the proximity to his home area, location of campus, and lifestyle fit, it doesn’t seem all too shocking. But, maybe those aren’t actual reasons in his decision. Maybe he wanted, as most coaches call it, a new challenge? 

The glaring, most likely, real reason though, even if he doesn’t specifically say it, is that Colorado State offers something that UConn can’t. No, it’s not necessarily salary or the assistant coaching pool (former coach Jay Norvell made less with the Rams than Mora was making with the Huskies). It’s hard to see how it can be argued the athletic department is better, despite the fact they may or may not have more money for football comparatively speaking than others and will continue to increase their investment. UConn’s athletic teams as a whole have accomplished more than Colorado State by leaps and bounds. The facilitating factor must be the conference. 

Colorado State is joining the revamped Pac-12 conference in 2026. Six schools will join the existing two to create an eight-team conference that will have a shot at the Group of 5 berth to the College Football Playoff annually. If history is any indicator, the Pac-12 expansion won’t stop there. And the Colorado State AD has already said he wants the football team to compete for championships. As well as football independence and the Big East for other sports is working out for UConn on the playing surface, it does not put the Huskies in position in the gridiron world of green for a pipe dream playoff berth or financial paydays in the future. Technically speaking, at Colorado State, Jim Mora can coach his team to the College Football Playoff. When recruiting, high school prospects or transfers, he can preach the possibilities of conference championships. After recent flirtations with the Big 12 fell through and a perplexing pass by the ACC in expansion, he can’t do that at UConn. 

Now, Mora embarks on his next challenge. And we thank him and wish him well. He’s 64 and may say, at the press conference when he’s welcomed in Fort Collins, that this will be his last job. Maybe it will be, but it’s best not to take that bet. Not only are many coaches compulsive liars, but above all they can’t stop seeking out what’s next. Most are transient by nature. 

They are weirdly wired and driven to be this way. It’s why James Franklin is at Virginia Tech right now after his dismissal from Penn State. It’s why Brian Kelly, although maybe for legal purposes, is arguing against LSU’s lack of formal firing because it’s preventing him from getting hired this cycle. 

That’s how it’s described: a cycle. The coaching carousel. But for a coach on their career path, it’s not a cycle or a carousel, it’s a trip or a trek. A walk through the woods. A hike up a hill. A run on a road. And it’s not always about reaching the destination or the top. It’s about the next step in the journey, moving on and forward. 

In hindsight, Mora gave us a subtle clue about his exit strategy in his post game radio interview following the chaotic win at FAU on Saturday, three days after his birthday. He told announcer Adam Giardino, my former RA (then dubbed, CA) and currently of the UConn Radio Network from Learfield, that age was just a number. Then he said, in a literal and metaphorical pitch more suited for the state of Colorado than Connecticut, “Come climb a mountain with me.”