FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Jim Mora spent the summer hiking and mountain biking to the top of whatever summit was in front of him. He finds peace tackling those uphill climbs.
This fall, another steep challenge awaits. Only this one takes place on the football field.
The longtime coach known for rebuilding programs tries to lead Colorado State back to the top in his first season in charge and as the Rams join the reimagined Pac-12 Conference.
“If we
work hard, if we stay healthy, if we maintain the standard, we can be successful,” Mora recently said from his office inside Canvas Stadium with a view overlooking the field. “We will be successful.”
Mora is no stranger to reclamation projects. He took over a 1-11 UConn team after the 2021 season and led the Huskies to a bowl game in three of his four seasons.
But his heart was lured out West. He spent a chunk of his childhood down the road in Boulder when his dad, 91-year-old coaching great Jim Mora, was an assistant for the Buffaloes.
The 64-year-old Mora knows the history of this conference well. His father was a longtime assistant when it was the Pac-8. He played in it as a defensive back for Washington when the league was the Pac-10. He coached in it at UCLA as part of the Pac-12.
Now, he's a member of this reassembled version that followed a high stakes game of conference realignment. The “Conference of Champions” features the likes of Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State, along with holdovers Washington State and Oregon State.
“It gives you a chance to play for a conference championship," Mora said. “A chance to potentially get into the college football playoff. ... This was really exciting to me.”
It was his dad's advice that's stayed with him through every stop at every level.
Firmly set the groundwork early, his father instructed.
It worked out well for his dad, who was a head coach in the USFL (Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars) and later in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts, where his “Playoffs?!” rant remains iconic even 25 years later.
“Because you can’t go in easy and then come down with higher standards,” said Mora, who kicks off his Rams tenure on Sept. 5 against Wyoming. “You have to walk in the building with the highest of standards and hold people accountable.”
Another piece of advice from dad: Praise everyone. Because a word of encouragement goes a long way.
“The players don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” said Hugh Millen, a longtime friend who was roommates with Mora at Washington before embarking on an NFL career and later seeing his son play for Mora at UConn. “Players sense there’s something genuine about how he cares. You can feel that."
That's simply from lessons he learned along the way — from the late Don James at Washington to, of course, his father. Mora chats with his dad all the time.
“I know that everything he tells me is genuine," Mora said, "and from the heart.”
Mora's new office is already well decorated. There are numerous pictures — him as a player, as a coach, with former players, with his father — adorning the walls.
On the coffee table, a thick book titled “Aggies to Rams: The history of Colorado State football.” Certainly, he will be a chapter in an updated version.
Mora takes over the program from Jay Norvell, who was fired last October after a 2-5 start. It was a feat just to get Mora from UConn, where he guided the Huskies to back-to-back nine-win seasons in 2024 and '25.
The Rams haven't won that many games since 2014, when they had 10 under Jim McElwain while in the Mountain West. They haven't won a conference title since 2002 with Sonny Lubick — the coaching great the field is named after — running the show.
“We went to look for a program builder and we found that in Coach Mora,” athletic director John Weber said. “His level of detail, his level of preciseness, teaches everyone in the department what it really takes to compete at a championship caliber.”
The school has revamped the program and features an on-campus stadium that opened in 2017. The Rams also just signed a new partnership deal with Adidas.
“This," Weber said, "is what a power school looks like.”
Mora used to constantly vacuum when he was roommates with Millen while a graduate assistant at Washington.
It's the way the detail-oriented Mora is wired. It's why taking a timeout from coaching for a few seasons after being dismissed from UCLA in 2017 was a challenge. He missed the grind.
So he climbed.
“He would run up the mountain at such a pace to bring on the physical pain so that it could finally mask and drown out the internal pain that he wasn’t coaching,” Millen recounted. “He needed to coach as much as he needed to draw his next breath.”
Which led him to UConn, where he revitalized a program known more for basketball. He accomplished a similar turnaround with the Bruins (going 46-30 from 2012-17) and hopes to rejuvenate the Rams.
“I’m getting up every day with the mindset to do the very best I can,” said Mora, who also has been an NFL head coach with Seattle and Atlanta. “If you do that, you’re always at least moving toward success.”
His influence already is contagious. The players frequently practiced on their own this summer to build cohesion.
“We try to be a player-led team," said receiver Jackson Harper, who followed Mora from UConn. "Because player-led teams are successful.”
Before camp, Mora hiked and mountain biked in Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado. In all, he logged 75,000 vertical feet.
Anything he reflected on during those ascents?
“I think about everything,” Mora said. "But I just really try to observe nature and how lucky I am."
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
