{"id":559255,"date":"2026-02-01T19:13:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/559255\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:13:45","slug":"csu-rams-football-coach-jim-mora-isnt-done-mending-fences-with-colorado-prep-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/559255\/","title":{"rendered":"CSU Rams football coach Jim Mora isn’t done mending fences with Colorado prep coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Mora\u2019s drive-bys are more like drive-ins.<\/a> Grab some popcorn.<\/a> Kick your feet up. Swap stories.<\/a> Compare scars. Laugh hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about this: I\u2019m sitting in an office with a guy who was a coach for 25 years in the NFL,\u201d Mullen High coach Jeremy Bennett told me Friday. \u201cHaving never met with him before, talking with him, it was like being with a buddy I\u2019ve known for 20 years. It was comfortable. It was authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

How authentic? Last Wednesday, Mora, the CSU Rams\u2019 new football coach,<\/a> popped his head into the football offices at Mullen just to say, \u201cHi.\u201d Only as Bennett remembers it, that \u2018pop\u2019 lasted for about 55 minutes.<\/p>\n

They talked shop. Mutual friends. The insanity of the transfer portal. Twenty minutes became 30. Then 40. Then 45. After 50, Mora glanced at his watch. Oh, crud.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach, I gotta get going,\u201d Mora said to Bennett. \u201cMy wife\u2019s been out in the car this whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach,\u201d Bennett laughed, \u201cshe could\u2019ve come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, she gets it,\u201d Mora said. \u201cI just got caught up in the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time flies when you\u2019re having a Rams run. Or a Rams Rush, in this case.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here\u2019s the thing: We could have sat there for another hour,\u201d Bennett recounted with a chuckle. \u201cWe would have just kept chopping it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Mora was left waiting, Bennett was told, because the couple planned to do some car-shopping in Denver on their way back to FoCo. Talk about Front Range multi-tasking at its finest. While we\u2019re running errands, why not make new friends, build some bridges, while we\u2019re at it?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I feel we\u2019re going to see out of (CSU) better (recruiting) coverage in-state,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cI really do \u2026 it\u2019ll be interesting to see how many \u201926 guys (are signed) and how many offers are out in \u201927. You can say, \u2018We\u2019ve got to see.\u2019 But I think it is going to be better out of Fort Collins. I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Signing Day \u2014 like drive-ins, yes, it\u2019s still a thing \u2014 falls on Wednesday. The Rams have just one in-state signee so far for the Class of 2026, according to the 247Sports.com database.<\/a> They\u2019re trying to improve on that number for 2027, for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Colorado kids to play in Colorado,\u201d Mora told me by phone early in the week. \u201cNow, they have to fit our profile. But the only way you find that out is if you spend time around them and build those relationships \u2026 (so) it\u2019s not just a one-time thing. It\u2019s an ongoing process.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, this past January 15, with the transfer portal spinning at about 50,000 rpm, Mora and CSU tried something a little different: They went hyperlocal.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rams had 11 staffers out on the highways, driving to and visiting with Colorado high school coaches as part of Operation: Ram Rush, posting updates to social media with the hashtag #RamRush.<\/p>\n

Mora\u2019s \u2018pop,\u2019 in fact, was the Rams\u2019 second trek to Mullen in 13 days. Bennett said that was new, too. The Mustangs had been the first stop during CSU\u2019s January 15 blitz for Dalton Hilliard, the Rams\u2019 defensive backs coach.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was way, way different,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cIt was apologetic. And not that they needed to be, but they understand (the dynamics).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hear (that) all the time, but for some reason, it just hit different. They understand they\u2019ve got to take the top guys in Colorado to be successful \u2014 not only on the field, but in the community. You\u2019ve got to recruit your backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, maybe, more than ever. Why? For one, open transferring and revenue-sharing for players have made Power 4 schools more inclined to swoop in and pluck smaller schools\u2019 more finished products rather than develop their own. CU football coach Deion Sanders\u2019 newest portal haul reads like a Group of 5 all-star travel team.<\/p>\n

Part of the CSU football brand is baked into getting the not-quite-fast enough, not-quite-big-enough Colorado prospects that the Buffs traditionally take a pass on. Some of the best Rams teams of the last 30 years had enough chips on their respective shoulders, collectively, to fill the entire snack aisle at King Soopers.<\/p>\n

Based on the 247Sports database, CU offered eight in-state recruits for the Class of \u201926 and had one Colorado signee as of last Friday afternoon.<\/a> They\u2019ve reportedly got five in-state offers out for 2027. CSU has 12.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Sanders and I) know each other very well,\u201d Mora said of Coach Prime. \u201cBut I\u2019m not competing against anybody but our standard. We don\u2019t spend one section of our day worrying about other people. We just do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders has targeted players that the Buffs can plug-in-and-play immediately, be they freshmen or former Mid-American Conference\/Sun Belt Conference seniors. CU has checked in on Mullen 3-star edge rusher Troy Mailo, 247\u2019s No. 2 in-state prospect for the Class of \u201927<\/a> \u2014 but so have about 25 other major programs.<\/p>\n

In fact, local coaches will tell you that The Prime Method of transfers first + recruiting nationally has only opened doors for CSU\u2019s new staff when it comes to Colorado kids. If they want to run through them. The Rams haven\u2019t produced a class with more than two in-state prep recruits since 2023. They haven\u2019t produced one with more than seven since 2014.<\/p>\n

Mora, no dummy, has already noticed. CSU, per 247, had 23 in-state offers out in the Class of \u201926 and a dozen so far for the Class of \u201927. This after the Rams offered one for the Class of \u201925, 13 for \u201924 and 14 for \u201923.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said when I took the job, you\u2019ve got to try to win your state (by) recruiting high-school players,\u201d Mora told me. \u201cAnd the only way that you can do that is to get out and meet people and create relationships and build trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike his previous three predecessors, Mora\u2019s already got one foot in several doors on that last front. His dad helped coach Dave Logan<\/a> while the latter was starring at CU. His quarterbacks coach\/pass game coordinator, Matt Mitchell, is the brother-in-law of Valor coach Mike Sanford.<\/a> He\u2019s known Legend coach Jake Heaps for years and the Pagano family forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be able to go and to see people,\u201d Mora continued, \u201cbut it\u2019s important that we try to get as many players and coaches as possible up to our campus to watch our spring practices and get with our coaches and exchange football ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

And not just at clinics, either. Bennett says he landed a personal invite to Canvas Stadium. One he plans to accept.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all that he\u2019s done, everywhere he\u2019s been, for all the success he\u2019s had in our industry, (Mora) didn\u2019t treat me any differently,\u201d the Mustangs coach recalled. \u201cHe just sat, and he talked to me like a ball coach. It was different.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy staff was in there with us. And every one of them, when he left said, \u2018Wow, what a great guy. That was cool.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Mora\u2019s drive-bys are more like drive-ins. Grab some popcorn. Kick your feet up. Swap stories. Compare scars.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":559256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[172500,2871,1369,116134,110021,77946,194386,172502,4148,8605,1318,85425,244338,97918,13946,1370,244339,244340,244341,197188,1317,1315,1316,1232,9713,88628,62,2632,67,132,68,244342],"class_list":["post-559255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-cherry-creek-high-school","tag-college","tag-college-sports","tag-colorado-state","tag-colorado-state-football","tag-csu","tag-csu-rams","tag-dave-logan","tag-deion-sanders","tag-denver","tag-football","tag-fort-collins","tag-jeremy-bennett","tag-jim-mora","tag-king-soopers","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mike-sanford","tag-mullen","tag-mullen-high-school","tag-national-signing-day","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nfl","tag-pac-12","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-valor-christian-high-school"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}