Five wins is Mora less fine.
Four is healthy progress for CSU football, isn’t it? Six or more is superlative, given the moving parts.
My Rams pals aren’t just psyched for The Jim Mora Era to get underway in five weeks. They’re jacked the way
Some have even tried to convince me that anything short of a bowl this fall, right out of the chute, is a failure. To them, Mora was CSU athletic director John Weber doing his best Chris MacFarland, pushing any and all chips to the middle of the table, rocking the right-now,
After all, they say, Mora is the highest-paid football coach in the new-fangled Pac-12 ($2.4 million), which is more than Boise State’s Spencer Danielson ($2.1 million), who’s 24-8 over his first 32 games in charge. And more than Utah State’s Bronco Mendenhall ($2.06 million), the man who’s coaching the CU Buffs right now in several of the alternate-universe timelines that aren’t this one.
“I think it would be unfair to make an assessment after one year,” Weber told me last month when I asked about where to set the bar for Mora’s first season. “When I made that decision last fall, I made the decision knowing the type of person that I needed to go get, and the type of person that this university needed.”
On one level, it’s perfectly OK for expectations to match the investment. Besides, Mora’s track record says he’s probably good for it. The man’s first UConn team in 2022 went 6-7 and bowled after he’d inherited a 1-11 mess from the previous regime, which ain’t a bad parallel for the present.
His first UCLA team finished 9-5 and first in the old Pac-12 South in 2012. Heck, his initial Atlanta Falcons squad went 11-5 back in 2004, although that lone Seattle Seahawks season five years later came and went with a 5-11 whimper.
But before you take the nearest claw hammer to grandma’s piggy bank and start penciling in bowl plans, we’re begging you to keep a couple things in mind.
The first is CSU’s recent history. Since Leon Fuller, God rest his soul, grabbed the reins in 1982, only two Rams football coaches in the 44 years since have won six or more contests in their debut season: Steve Fairchild in 2008 and Mike Bobo in 2015, both with matching 7-6 marks.
Earle Bruce was close, at 5-5-1 in 1989. The legendary Sonny Lubick went 5-6 in ’93 to kick off the greatest era in modern Rams football lore. Heck, Jim McElwain was 4-8 in Year 1. Over the last five decades, first-year CSU coaches have posted an aggregate record of 36-50-1, or won about 42% of the time. Stretch that out over a 12-game slate, and precedent likes Mora to go 5-7. So do I.
The second is the fight card. Look closely. You can find four wins on the season fairly reasonably, including Wyoming in the opener. A 2-0 start after home victories against the Pokes and Southern Utah definitely could be in the cards. But I defy you, with a straight face, to come up with four more locks after that.
Oregon State at home on Oct. 3? That’s one. But most of the remaining toss-ups — at Texas State, at Utah State, at Fresno State — are on the road, which puts more of a squeeze on nabbing a home upset against either San Diego State (Oct. 24) or Boise (Nov. 7).
“It is no secret that we have had sporadic success, and I sought an individual that could come here and help us truly assess what it takes as a university to be successful in the football program,” Weber continued.
“You see nice shiny objects like that beautiful stadium, and you see a head coach salary, and that sets a level of expectation for people, and I get it. What we haven’t done enough of is all the other foundational aspects that it takes to build a perennially successful program. And that is what we’ve been focusing a lot on over the last couple years. And you know that it takes a different level of commitment to make things like that happen.
“And back to Coach Mora … we were already well down that path, and felt like we understood what we needed to do. And he’s come in and certainly validated a lot of what we needed to do. And has helped continue to push us in that right direction.”
Mora — who steered UConn, of all places, to three bowl bids in four years at a hoops school — became the best FBS college football coach in the Front Range the minute he walked into Canvas Stadium with a green tie and Wyoming on the brain. CU’s Deion Sanders still has to prove there’s steak left in BoCo after Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders took their sizzle to the pros. Air Force’s Troy Calhoun is coming off two seasons with a combined record of 9-15 and the Zoomies’ first back-to-back campaigns with seven or more defeats since 2017-18. The harder the offense in Laramie is to watch under Cowboys coach Jay Sawvel (7-17 since 2024), the hotter it gets under his seat.
On paper, Mora feels like the right man at the right time, a step up for a program that’s aching to do the same, a presence that immediately ticks off a ton of boxes. Pac-12 roots? Check. California pipelines? Check. Colorado-friendly? Check. Proven winner at a coaching graveyard? Check. NFL bona fides? Check.
Although, when you think about it, a lot of the same bullet points also applied to Jay Norvell’s resume when he arrived from Nevada four-and-a-half years earlier. If you don’t get QB and the offensive line right, and Mora should, FoCo can become an awfully slippery slope. Despite the best of intentions.
As projections go, Kenneth Massey’s like 3.4 wins in ’26. DraftKings.com sets the over-under at 3.5 wins, which looks like easy money on the former.
But any higher than 4.0? With that schedule? Brother, it’s your wallet.
“(He’s) got 68 new players this fall,” Weber said, “and that staff will be doing everything they can to bring that group of young men together as a team. That’s a lot of new people to bring together, right?”
Sure is. The Mora Miracle is well underway. Cam’s walking a lot prouder these days. It’s a big ask to walk on water overnight.
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