Jim Mora Staying at UCLA Was Bruins' 1st Win of 2015 Season

UCLA football started the new year with a 40-35 Alamo Bowl win over Kansas State, but that was hardly the biggest victory for the Bruins in a young 2015. UCLA's most significant win was retaining head coach Jim Mora. 

Between UCLA legend Terry Donahue's retirement following the 1995 season and Mora's hire in 2012, UCLA rode a coaching carousel that saw three head coaches in 16 up-and-down years. 

There were peaks in those 16 seasons, sure—Bob Toledo's Rose and Cotton Bowl teams in 1997 and 1998, Karl Dorrell's 10-game winner in 2005—but the only consistency was that the Bruins were inconsistent. 

Under Mora, UCLA has consistently been in the chase for the Pac-12 championship, and the program's current run of three straight seasons with at least nine wins is a record.

Losing the head coach to another job now would have started the carousel turning anew. But with him back in the fold, the progress UCLA has made in three short years is guaranteed to continue into a fourth campaign. 

Of course, success guarantees rumors. It's a simple reality in this profession, one which even the most entrenched head coach is not immune. Just consider the Nick Saban-to-Texas talk that permeated a year ago. 

Darren Abate/Associated Press

When Saban rebuked the Longhorns, Mora's name was among the more prominent mentioned in conjunction with the vacancy Mack Brown's departure left. 

Before UCLA met that same Texas team in September, Mora turned all discussion of any possible flirtations squarely on the Bruins. 

"You'd have to ask [Texas administrators] if they considered me," Mora said. "I'm just excited to be the head coach of UCLA.

"That's never changed," he added. "Since the day I got here, I've been excited about it and every day I get more excited about it."

Be that as it may, coaching is nomadic. Mora is one of 10 head coaches in the Pac-12 new to his particular program since the 2012 season. An 11th, Stanford's David Shaw, took over for Jim Harbaugh just a year prior. 

Offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone knows the shell game that is the coaching profession as well as anyone. When he joined Mora in 2012, UCLA was his fifth stop since 2005. 

"When you move around as a coach, either you're not worth [much] or you're pretty good," Mazzone said in November. 

Mora falls squarely into the latter category based on his three years at UCLA. His 0.725 win percentage over the last three years puts Mora in the same class as notables Art Briles (0.769), Mark Dantonio (0.775) and Bob Stoops (0.743).  

Thus, it only stands to reason that on the heels of his second consecutive 10-win season, his name would reemerge in the never-ending rumor mill. 

One report, later debunked by Mora himself, had him interviewing for the New York Jets' vacancy. 

When shutting down that rumor to Chris Foster of the Los Angeles Times, Mora made comments that speak to why his remaining at UCLA is such a major win for the program: 

"

I never wavered from saying that I’m very happy at UCLA. I love college football and I love coaching UCLA Bruins...I think it’s always a compliment to your program and the success that your program is having when other people mention you, whether it’s real or fabricated.

"

Indeed, the rumors are a compliment to his success. And Mora has had sustained success because his love for college football resoundingly answered one of the biggest question marks about his initial hire. 

Aside from a one-year stint as a graduate assistant under Don James at Washington, Mora's entire coaching career was spent in the NFL. 

Nearly 30 years removed from that introduction to the college game, however, things came full circle when Mora returned to the University of Washington to rehabilitate an injured knee.

In November of 2013, Mora said he gained a "hunger for [the college game]" in that time. 

That hunger, combined with the businesslike approach of the professional level, has helped UCLA stake out the identity it lacked for the nearly two decades after Donahue's retirement. 

And with Mora coming back, the Bruins won't need to find a new identity. They can focus on continuing to develop the current and proven successful model. 

Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise cited.