Longtime football coach rips 'millennial' QB prospect
During the lead-up to last year’s NFL draft, Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney made a bold claim about his former quarterback, Deshaun Watson.
Swinney said passing up on the chance to draft Watson would be the equivalent of a team passing on the opportunity to draft Michael Jordan in 1984.
Ahead of this year’s draft, another former coach of a top quarterback prospect has made a bold claim. But the nature of former UCLA coach Jim Mora’s assertion was very different from Swinney’s claim.
Mora spoke with Sports Illustrated’s “MMQB” about what makes quarterback prospect Josh Rosen click. Some of what he said, however, made it look as though Rosen’s ex-coach was doing his best to send the quarterback tumbling down draft boards.
Though he did call Rosen “the number one quarterback in the draft,” Mora, who was fired in the middle of UCLA’s 2017 season, also seemed to take a shot at Rosen for being a millennial.
“He needs to be challenged intellectually so he doesn’t get bored. He’s a millennial. He wants to know why,” Mora said. “Millennials, once they know why, they’re good. Josh has a lot of interests in life. If you can hold his concentration level and focus only on football for a few years, he will set the world on fire. He has so much ability, and he’s a really good kid.”
It wasn’t the first time Mora has made eyebrow-raising comments about his former quarterback. The ex-UCLA coach was asked last week on NFL Network who he would take with the number one pick in the draft.
Jim Mora: “I’d take Sam Darnold if I was the @Browns.”
📺: Path to the Draft https://t.co/fkKoDkXQ9p
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) March 26, 2018
“Because of fit, I would take Sam Darnold if I were the Cleveland Browns. I think that blue-collar, gritty attitude, I think his teammates will love him. I think the city will love him. He’ll say the right things. He’ll come in and represent well. I think he kind of represents what Cleveland is,” Mora said.
“And then if I was one of the New York teams (Jets or Giants), I’d take Josh (snaps) like that. I think they’re both going to be great pros,” he added.
Not only did Mora pick someone over the quarterback he coached, but he also picked a player — USC’s Sam Darnold — who starred at UCLA’s crosstown rival.
Mora, incidentally, was fired after the Bruins lost to the Trojans for the third consecutive year.
In that contest, Darnold threw for 264 yards with no passing touchdowns and one pick, while Rosen had 421 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception.
Though Mora was Rosen’s coach for 3 years and helped recruit him to the school, it appears many NFL general managers are taking what he’s saying with a grain of salt, because not a single one of them has called to ask him about Rosen ahead of the draft.
“None of them have called, which is interesting,” Mora told “MMQB.”
He went on to say that he thinks teams should know that Rosen wants to be a great NFL player, but stopped short of saying he will be a great NFL player.
“It’s desperately important for Josh to be a great player,” he said.
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