UConn has hired former UCLA and NFL coach Jim Mora to be its next football coach, athletic director David Benedict announced Thursday.
Mora and UConn have agreed to a five-year contract in which he will make $1.5 million in the first season and could earn another $200,000 in annual performance incentives. He will begin his head-coaching duties Nov. 28 after serving as an assistant coach for the rest of the 2021 season, which will allow him to recruit.
"This program is loaded with potential, and I look forward to getting to know the student-athletes on the team and am eager to get to work!" Mora said in a statement.
Mora, who is 59, last coached in 2017, his final season at UCLA. He went 46-30 with the Bruins before being fired in November 2017. ESPN hired Mora as a college football analyst in 2018.
UConn announced in September that Randy Edsall would step down as coach. Edsall went 6-32 in his second stint as Huskies coach after guiding the program to two Big East titles and a Fiesta Bowl appearance during his first run from 1999 to 2010. This season, the Huskies are 1-8, with their only win coming against Yale, an FCS team from the Ivy League.