Thanks to injuries and “assisted” by some horrific playcalling, the UCLA Bruins went 4-8 in a year many expected Jim Mora’s team to be a playoff contender. So after Mora fired Kennedy Pola, he went on the hunt for a new coordinator and found Michigan passing game coordinator Jedd Fisch.
But it’s not just Fisch’s hiring that’s intriguing – it’s the comments Mora made about the search.
Mora didn't talk to any spread OCs. "As far as I know, no spread teams have won a national championship and that’s our goal here," Mora said
— Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) January 5, 2017
No spread teams have won a national championship, eh?
Well thanks to the fine folks at Reddit, Mora has been easily proven wrong. Texas won the national title running a spread in 2005, followed by Florida twice in three years, Auburn in 2010, and Ohio State in the first year of the playoff did the same under Tom Herman. You could even argue Florida State ran a spread in 2013, but the distinctions almost don’t matter much anymore since every offense runs an element of spread, including Jedd Fisch’s passing game at Michigan.
And that’s not to mention the teams that did make the national title game (and lost) running the spread, including Oregon multiple times – and no one is mistaking what type of offense the Ducks they ran.
Whatever your opinion is on college offenses, Mora’s comment is really dumb. And based on his logic, since teams that ran the wishbone won the national title, maybe we’ll see Josh Rosen run that next season in Westwood. Hey, if it can win a title, why not try it?
