Two weeks ago in Logan, Jim Mora said the hammer was coming down at Colorado State.
Saturday night in Pullman, he admitted the problem they're facing is bigger than he thought.
Washington State, who came into the game struggling with a 1-8 record, beat Colorado State 73-7. The 73 points is the second-most points the Rams have ever allowed in a game, according, and it also knocks CSU out of bowl contention in Mora’s first season.
“It’s a bigger fix than I thought it was. Much bigger,” Mora said, according to the Coloradoan. “I never expected it to be like this.”
Washington State came in on a six-game losing streak, winless in Pac-12 play and without a win over an FBS opponent all season. The Cougars ranked 130th nationally in scoring offense at 19 points per game and 120th in rushing, yet still managed an offensive explosion for the ages.
They ran for 300 yards in the first half and 535 for the game, ending with the most rushing yards Colorado State has ever allowed. Wazzu managed to score on all six of its first-half possessions. After the Rams were stopped on fourth-and-goal at the WSU 2 late in the first quarter, Kirby Vorhees went 98 yards up the middle on the next play, a Washington State school record.
“I’ve been doing this for 40-something years and never come close to giving up 70,” Mora said. “Well, I have come close this year. Before this year, never come close to giving up 70. It just makes you more determined to get it fixed.”
The Rams have allowed 476 points with two games left. The program record is 502, set by the 1981 team that went 0-12. CSU has given up 60 or more in back-to-back weeks after a 64-38 home loss to #20 Boise State on November 7.
Mora’s message to his locker room was simple. “You have two choices. You can quit and run and hide or you can keep fighting.”
He said some players have already made that choice, and that younger players will get their shot as they try to move forward with the future in mind..
Then came the line from Mora that has made the rounds across social media.
“The character of these young men, they’ll fight. Hopefully we get a couple of wins so they can learn how to win and what it takes to win,” Mora said.
“I think that’s a real problem here and has been for many, many years. The people here don’t know how to win. The place I came from [UConn], they’ve won 18 national championships in basketball, so the whole school knew how to win. We have to teach people around here how to win.”
Colorado State hired Mora away from UConn on November 26, 2025. He went 27-23 in four seasons in Storrs, taking over a program that went 1-11 the year before he arrived and leaving it after back-to-back nine-win seasons, a first in program history.
Before that, he went 46-30 at UCLA from 2012-17 and coached the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.
The Rams went 8-5 in 2024, their first winning season since 2017. They started 2-0 this fall, including a 35-13 win over Wyoming but are 3-7 and 1-5 in the Pac-12 now.
Many will disagree with the delivery, but Mora's point remains true. Winning is a learned behavior, and most of us who have taken over a struggling program have stood in front of a group that expected to lose on Saturday and had to drag them out of it. Tying it to Geno Auriemma, Dan Hurley, Jim Calhoun and the UConn basketball banners is a fair illustration of what an expectation looks like when an entire campus carries it.
But “the people here” is where a lot of folks are going to take issue with Mora's comments because it covers players he recruited out of the portal, a staff he hired, and a fan base that was promised a Pac-12 title and a playoff run at his introductory press conference back in December. After the Utah State loss, Mora said everyone who touches the program is responsible.
Colorado State plays at Fresno State to close the season on Saturday, November 21.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.