When Jim Mora takes the field Saturday night, he will look across the field to the other sideline and see the man he could’ve been – that is, the head coach of the Texas Longhorns.
Reportedly, Texas offered Mora the job in January, going so far as to promise to send a private jet to pick up his parents so they’d be able to travel to every game. But Mora, who received a raise and a contract extension from UCLA in December that runs through 2019, decided to stay in Westwood and command the squad that he has helped mold into what currently sits as the No. 12 team in the nation.
Instead of Mora, the man leading the Longhorns (1-1) into Saturday’s tilt with the Bruins (2-0) is Charlie Strong. Oddly enough, the former Louisville coach finds himself in a place Mora was not too long ago. Like Mora, Strong has been determined to bring about a culture change to a program that had underperformed in the years prior to his arrival. The results have been decidedly mixed between the two thus far.
“This group of players embraced everything we asked them to do and be immediately,” Mora said. “Sure, there’s a little bit of a shock and it’s never smooth sailing. But the guys here, they wanted to be a team that garnered respect around the country, so they were very open to the changes we wanted to make.”
If things weren’t smooth for Mora in his first year, they’ve been downright seismic in Strong’s initial nine months on the job. Strong has already dismissed eight players from the program and suspended others for a variety of violations. Texas will also be without starting quarterback David Ash, after the redshirt junior suffered a concussion in the team’s opening game against North Texas. Ash, who has a history of concussions, has been ruled out “indefinitely” according to Strong.
Now, like Mora did two years ago with then-redshirt freshman Brett Hundley, Strong must turn to a highly touted dual-threat quarterback in his second year with the program. Sophomore Tyrone Swoopes will make his second career start Saturday after getting the call a week ago during Texas’ 41-7 drubbing at the hands of BYU.
Swoopes fared well enough in his first career start, completing 20 of 31 passes for 176 yards with a touchdown and an interception. However, Swoopes rarely challenged BYU vertically down the field last Saturday, and the Texas offense was stifled for the majority of the game. Still, sophomore linebacker Myles Jack isn’t underestimating Swoopes after seeing him play firsthand in the 2013 Army All-American Bowl as his teammate on the West squad.
“He’s a big dude. He’s a good player. He’s got an arm. He can run,” Jack said. “It’s going to be a challenge playing a guy like that because if he doesn’t see anything, he’s going to take off and run. We just have to be responsible in our rush lanes and keep our eye on him.”
Yes, it appears that the old adage about Texas is true, as Swoopes leads a team that is big on athleticism, size, speed and talent, albeit with a .500 record.
“It’s Texas. They do everything big over there,” said junior wide receiver Jordan Payton. “For a Cali kid, I never really got to play against anybody from Texas. It’s going to be exciting to play against them.”
Fittingly, it doesn’t get much bigger than AT&T; Stadium in Arlington, Texas – the site of Saturday’s neutral-site contest between the Bruins and Longhorns. Home to a standing capacity of 105,121 and a mammoth high-definition television screen that comprises 11,520 square feet, Saturday promises a playing environment unlike anything most of the Bruins have yet encountered.
“It’s impressive. Just the whole stadium, the whole atmosphere, especially when it’s full,” said redshirt junior center Jake Brendel, who played at the stadium in high school. “It’s a very good atmosphere to play in, but at the same time my focus is always on the field.”
That’s the expectation for a UCLA team that Mora thought was bothered by outside pressure in the first two weeks of the season. However, he said that the team was refocused this week and that it was “back where (it needs) to be.”
Mora must hope so. After all, the eyes of Texas are still upon him.