The disappointments during Jim Mora’s first four seasons at UCLA were mostly of the we’ll-get-’em-next-time variety.
There were two 10-win seasons that didn’t lead to a major bowl. A trip to the Pac-12 Conference championship game that ended in defeat. A poor finish to the 2015 season that included a loss in the Foster Farms Bowl.
Mora’s success was widely thought to have stabilized Bruins Athletic Director Dan Guerrero’s job security while reviving a program that had fallen onto drowsy times under predecessors Rick Neuheisel and Karl Dorrell.
Now, for the first time under Mora, the Bruins have hit a football DEFCON 3-4.