UCLA has suffered from two major ills in its thinking about football: myopia (the idea that only guys who've coached at UCLA or USC even exist in college football and can be used as examples of anything, e.g., Walker! Cable! Sark! Chow!), and false conventional assumptions that travel in cliches (e.g. "NFL experience").
Both of these ills are now combining to make Jim Mora Jr. a viable candidate in our search and someone we are supposedly looking to offer. Here are the reasons that this would be an incredible dumb move.
1. Hasn't coached in college for 27 years.
How many times must we go through this? PETE CARROLL IS THE ONLY LIFETIME NFL COACH TO SUCCEED AT A HIGH LEVEL IN COLLEGE, AND HE CHEATED! Everyone else has been an abject failure. This is the absolute worst formula for hiring a college coach. Sherman, Wanstedt, Weis, Gailey...the list goes on and on and on.
Mora's sole college experience was one year as an assistant under Don James.
2. Career coaching record is 31-33.
Not even worth getting into...but if you are going to hire an NFL coach, he better be someone with total star cred like Bill Belichek, maybe even Jeff Fisher or Gruden. Mora does not qualify in the least.
3. Has no familiarity with college-style innovation in schemes.
Mora's total experience is with stale, conventional pro systems, which he will either institute here or scrap in favor of a system he has no experience with.
4. Son of Jim Mora
Most conservative NFL coach in history, who played-not-to-lose his way to playoff disappointments every single season with very talented teams (and Peyton Manning).
5. Buddy of Terry Donahue
Most conservative coach in college history, the curse of UCLA football, and messenger of Dorrell and Neuheisal.
WE CAN DO MUCH BETTER!!!