It truly is difficult to be too angry at Jim Mora for leaving UConn for Colorado State.

Listening to his introductory news conference on Monday from Fort Collins, Colo., he was at peace. Comfortable. Surrounded by things he loved that he didn’t have in Storrs, like childhood memories, professional ties and a direct link to the man who taught him the life of a coach – his dad.

Jim Mora was home.

Born in Los Angeles when his father, whose name he shares, was a young coach at Occidental College, the family left California when his dad accepted an assistant coaching job at Colorado in Boulder in 1968. Jim, the son, was 6, and it made a lasting impression on him and left him with a passion for the region that apparently has been passed down.

“I love the mountains. I'm an outdoorsman at heart. My experiences growing up for six years in Colorado shaped a lot of the way I am now, the things that I like to do, my interest outside of football,” he told a large crowd assembled Monday.

“I had great memories, you know, as a child growing up in Boulder, visiting Fort Collins. My nephew just graduated from CU a year and a half ago. My son graduated from Colorado six months ago. So, there's a real connection to this community.”

Aside from the family history and the ties to Colorado, one thing UConn couldn’t offer him was a chance to be in the conversation to reach the College Football Playoff every year. As a member of the new Pac-12 conference, which will be reborn next fall, Colorado State is part of a league that will have a seat at the table that independent UConn doesn’t have.

That doesn’t mean Mora doesn’t hold dear his time spent in Storrs. Despite not having the deep ties to New England, Mora made a successful home there the past four seasons, achieving a 27-23 record and reaching three bowl games with UConn. He won’t be there to coach the Huskies in their still-to-be determined bowl game this year, with interim coach Gordon Sammis having the honors.

Closure

Mora is credited for turning around a moribund Huskies program and giving a basketball school a football team to be proud of.

After the news conference, Mora and his wife, Kathy, and son, Trey, planned to board a plane for Connecticut to give him a chance to connect with the Huskies one final time. UConn players had already left town for the holiday break by the time Mora made the decision to move on to Colorado State.

It’s important to him to have proper closure with the Huskies.

“Because of the way our calendar fell at the University of Connecticut. I had not had the chance to address the team that I coached,” he said. “And I need to look those men in the eyes, and I need to tell them thank you and that I love them and I appreciate them for all the things that they did.”

His meeting with the Huskies is set for 8 a.m. Tuesday

“It’ll be emotional, but I will tell you this,” he said. “The amount, the number of players that have already reached out to me and wished me well and said thanks has been pretty humbling and overwhelming.”

Mora was asked what he would take with him from UConn.

“The people,” he said without hesitation. “I was very fortunate. We were very fortunate to be embraced into that community, given the opportunity to build something that was special and do things that had never been done there before in terms of football.

“So it'll be the people, it'll be the players that I was fortunate to coach and have part of our life. They were special. They'll always be special to me.”

And like he carried a piece of Colorado all of those years, let’s be glad he will have that piece of Connecticut.

For one brief, shining moment, it was home, too.

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