FORT COLLINS — Jim Mora got over the line at Fort Fun with a tush push from Clay Millen’s dad. Small world.
“I think CSU had a heck of a lot of boxes that Jim needed checked,” Hugh Millen, the former Broncos quarterback and father of ex-CSU signal-caller Clay, explained to me over the phone Friday while the Rams’ season met a merciful end. “But it started with, ‘Do they have the support system to get to (my) goals?’ ”
Mora, who on Monday will be introduced as CSU’s fourth football coach since 2018, decided they did. But not before doing his homework.
Among the voices the Connecticut football coach reached out to in recent weeks was Millen, his old Washington Huskies teammate. He knew Clay was a Rammie. Another of Millen’s sons, Cale, played for Mora at UConn.
So they began a series of long text exchanges about 10-12 days ago to break down the CSU job. Millen wanted to know about the facilities. About the player experience. About the infrastructure. About the campus. About FoCo and Larimer County.
Are the conditions right?
Can you win there?
Can you win BIG there?
“I said, ‘Look, the facilities are better than UConn,’” the elder Millen recalled as CSU fell to Air Force, 42-21, putting the bow on a 2-10 season and on The Jay Norvell Era. “‘There’s a culture in Colorado, a football culture, that exceeds what (you have) at UConn.”
Papa Millen, John Elway’s old backup in ’94 and ’95, was Mora’s roomie back at U of Washington in the ’80s, when Don James had knocked USC from its old Pac-10 throne. Hugh spoke at Jim’s wedding.
Millen said Mora’s wife, Kathy, recently visited Fort Fun. Like a lot of newcomers, she immediately fell in love with it.
Not long after that, Millen’s phone blooped. Turns out Jim was smitten, too.
“I’m doing this,” Mora texted. “There’s a path to the College Football Playoff here.”
Sure is. Assuming you’ve got a Power 4 win on your resume and a Pac-12 title locked down tight.
“So in his mind, it’s like, ‘CFP or bust,’” Millen continued.
As for UConn, let’s just say the Moras had probably maxed it out. Nobody had won nine games at UConn since Randy Edsall in 2007, and Mora’s done it twice.
“You’re gonna love him,” Hugh said.
Then he added: “For some reason, amateur football in the northeast is just — lacrosse is bigger than high school football. So when you go to a UConn game, which is 30 miles’ drive from campus — of course (the Huskies) have a great basketball culture — but you have to stand on the sidelines to really absorb just how bad that job is.”
Yet Mora went 27-23 over four seasons there. Three of those teams were (or are) bowl-bound. He’s 18-7 over his last 25 contests. Context matters, too. Winning eight-plus games in Storrs is like winning eight-plus in Tucson or Lexington or Chapel Hill or Lawrence — it’s still a hoops school.
So is UCLA, mind you. And what’s happened with the Bruins since joining the Big Ten has made Mora’s 46-30 mark in Westwood from 2012-2017 loom even larger.
“Let me say it like this,” Millen laughed. “I think he’s a substantial upgrade over Jay Norvell.”
He’s biased, of course, of his own admission. Clay was benched for Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi in 2023, the former transferred to Florida, and that was that.
“Explain the ‘substantial’ part,” I said.
“Because he knows how to assemble a staff that puts players in winning positions,” Millen countered. “He knows how to relate to players. He’s got a lot of experience as a CEO. Players respond to him. He understands players. He makes staff changes …
“I don’t want to say that (this) was Jay’s undoing (at CSU). I think (Mora’s) in-game coaching, his adjustments … I just think he’s just demonstrated that he’s a superior coach.”
He’s also a mountain man. Jim spent his elementary school years in Boulder while his father was on Eddie Crowder’s Buffs staff. Mora never, ever let the Front Range go.
“If anybody who’s wringing their hands and saying, ‘I’m concerned about Jim’s age,’ I want you to go meet Jim at the base of a summit,” Millen quipped. “I don’t care what your age is, I’ll lay (odds) he’ll beat you up that mountain. That guy is 64 going on 44.”
Good thing, too, as Friday was one of those games that could age a coach in a hurry. Already down 7-0 on its opening drive, CSU faced a third-and-15 at its own 20. Lloyd Avant flashed open along the right hash. No Air Force defender was within 8 or 9 yards of him.
Rams QB Jackson Brousseau threw short anyway, skipping it off the turf the way a shortstop skips a throw from deep in the hole. If the path to the CFP starts now, CSU’s got miles to go. And some serious mountains to climb.