There’s a lot going on in the Denver sports market right now. The Denver Broncos are making a run at the Super Bowl, the Denver Nuggets are battling for wins and postseason positioning without the best player on Earth, the Colorado Avalanche are dominating the NHL… and the occasional mention of the craziness of the college football transfer portal, which has robbed Deion Sanders and his CU Buffaloes of pretty much every single player on the roster not nicknamed ‘JuJu’ that Buff fans could recognize.
All this has made it the perfect time for new Colorado State football coach Jim Mora and his staff to very quietly – and very quickly – begin an extreme makeover of their own with the Rams football program.
When Mora accepted the gig in Fort Collins, it was expected that the former NFL head coach would likely bring with him some players and coaches from his last coaching stop at UConn. And that’s exactly what’s happened.
It all started just a few days after Mora accepted the job and planted his feet in FoCo. Typically a high school recruiting class suffers when a coaching change is made, but the 2025 class really didn’t… and with a handful of noteworthy late additions of former UConn commits, CSU actually ended up with one of the better recruiting classes in the new Pac 12. The Rams’ 26 commits left them ranked second in the new league behind only Boise State. Not a bad jumping-off point.
Then Mora and his new staff – including holdover defensive coordinator Tyson Summers – turned their attention to the transfer portal, and were able to break even in terms of numbers, and hopefully upgrade in terms of talent.
The Rams suffered significant losses in the portal, including All-America linebacker Owen Long, and the outstanding running back foursome of Lloyd Avant (moving to Oklahoma) Jalen Dupree (Kansas), Javion Kinnard (San Diego State) and Justin Marshall (Liberty.) They also lost tight ends Rocky Beers (Oklahoma) and Jaxxon Warren (North Carolina) and quarterbacks Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi (Michigan) and Jackson Brousseau (Cal) But they more than made up for the 31 departures by adding 31 newcomers, including fleet-footed quarterback Hauss Hejny, who comes to CSU from Oklahoma State along with 14 former UConn Huskies, who reached a bowl game last season under Mora
That means that more than half of Mora’s first CSU team will be donning the green and gold for the first time in September… and the first game on the 5th is at home against Wyoming.
And even while everyone in Rams Country is anxious to see what Mora’s first squad looks like, something even more important was happening within the program.
During his introductory press conference, Mora stated, “I would like to build our program through high school recruiting. I would like to capture every great athlete in this state and make them Colorado State Rams.”
As soon as the new recruiting period opened on January 15th, the veteran coach and his staff started working to make that pledge a reality, visiting more than 50 Colorado high schools in the first two days. In-state recruiting, which was not a priority for the last CSU staff, will be one for Mora and his team.
No longer will the motto “State Pride” ring hollow.
Every new coach would like to stay under the radar at the outset, to allow things to settle down and settle in. But judging by his aggressive approach to player acquisition, Mora is setting things up for an attention-grabbing spring when he unveils his new team to Rams Country.
