UCLA slipped past Colorado on Saturday with a 40-37 road win in double overtime, but it was a victory that saw the Bruins make mistake after mistake against a lesser opponent.

A day later, Jim Mora wanted to remind everyone that this program looked far worse not too long ago.

“Let’s all remember that the last game UCLA played before this whole thing started was a 50-0 ass-kicking,” he said Sunday.

The third-year head coach was referring, of course, to the Bruins’ 50-0 loss to USC in 2011 — one that came just days after former head coach Rick Neuheisel said UCLA had “closed the gap” with their crosstown rivals.

Technically, the Bruins played two more games before Mora took over: a 49-31 loss to then-No. 8 Oregon in the Pac-12 title game, and a 20-14 loss to Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

But that 50-0 shellacking against the Trojans was the low point that prompted Neuheisel’s firing just days later. Two weeks after that, UCLA hired Mora — who, despite his team’s recent struggles, orchestrated a quick turnaround that few expected.

“We’re only two and a half years into our tenure here, and we’ve won 75 percent of our regular season games with a completely overhauled roster,” Mora said. “I don’t know if you guys know that, but we’re 24-8 in regular season games here since we’ve been here, with a completely overhauled roster.”

“As much gloom and doom as there is out there, I would challenge anyone to go find a UCLA team in the history of UCLA that has done what this group has done in two and a half years, with the youth that we have and the turnover we’ve had.”

Judging by overall record, Mora oversaw the Bruins’ best two-year stretch since Bob Toledo guided them to back-to-back 10-2 seasons in 1997 and 1998. Those campaigns led to conference championships and ended in a Cotton Bowl win and a Rose Bowl loss, but UCLA only lost three players to the 1998 NFL draft, and none to the 1997 NFL draft.

Mora inherited a full cupboard of talent, but the 2013 and 2014 drafts took nine Bruins — including No. 9 overall pick Anthony Barr. It was UCLA’s highest two-year draftee total since 1993 and 1994.