SANTA CLARA – The first three seasons of Jim Mora’s UCLA tenure were spent raising the bar for a program that had wallowed in mediocrity for much of the past decade.
When Mora arrived in 2012, the Bruins shook off a 6-8 finish in Rick Neuheisel’s final campaign to go 9-5 and win a Pac-12 South championship.
Consecutive 10-win seasons followed, only the third time in school history that the feat had been reached.
As for year four, things slipped. UCLA finished 8-5 overall, the worst mark under Mora, punctuated Saturday night with a 37-29 loss to sub-.