Nick Saban questions $10 million coach who took new college football job

The 2025 college football season has featured massive changes across the coaching order of the sport. A quarter of the SEC's jobs opened up as part of a frenzy of changes so far and yet to come. However, there's one change that recently happened which befuddled legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

Ahead of Week 14, the final of this wacky college football regular season, Saban joined the Pat McAfee Show, a weekly ritual throughout the fall. As the two 'College GameDay' cast members discussed various football topics, college and pro, McAfee's show flashed a graphic on the screen showing that UConn football coach Jim Mora had been hired as the new Colorado State coach.

"Have you heard about (Jim) Mora going to Colorado State, Coach Saban?" McAfee asked.

"No, I haven't heard that, but I don't know why he would do such a thing," Saban reacted candidly as McAfee and his show cronies burst into laughter. "Is he actually doing this, or is this just the talk?" Saban followed up.

"This is happening," answered McAfee. "It happened last night." To convince the surprised Saban, McAfee referenced the report from ESPN's own Pete Thamel, which read:

"Sources: Colorado State is expected to make UConn coach Jim Mora the school’s next head coach. The deal is expected to come together in the near future. Mora is coming off back-to-back nine-win seasons at UConn, a school that hadn’t had a 9-win football season since 2007."

UConn Huskies head coach Jim Mora | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

A few moments later, Nick Saban explained that he's a fan of Mora and thinks the Rams found a gem in their new leader.

"I like Jim Mora. I think he's a really good coach and thought he was a good coach when he was in the NFL as an assistant and as a head coach. So, it's great for Colorado State, I think. Not so good for UConn."

Nick Saban appeared a bit flustered when confronted by the news that Mora is leaving UConn. After all, he had found success with the Independent FBS station up there in Storrs. Jim Mora spent four seasons at Connecticut and won nine games each of the last two seasons (perhaps more, pending the remainder of this year). He previously served as head coach at UCLA and has NFL head coaching experience with the Falcons and Seahawks back in the aughts.

As Pat McAfee noted during the segment discussing Mora's move, conference prestige likely motivated the decision. Independence is admirable for the stubborn Huskies, but CSU is headed for the rebuild Pac-12 which offers frontiersman's promise.

We don't yet know the details on Mora's contract with Colorado State. With UConn, though, Mora had inked an extension ahead of the this season for four more seasons, 2025-28, worth a reported $10.01 in total base salary, plus more incentives available. That's a yearly average of about $2.5 million.

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