UCLA football links: Coaches on the hot seat, bowl predictions

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Head coach Jim Mora hired his third offensive coordinator in six years at UCLA this season. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

How many wins are needed to right UCLA’s ship with Jim Mora at the wheel this season? The coach owns a 41-24 overall record at UCLA, including two 10-win seasons, but the Bruins slid to eight and four wins in back-to-back years. (“Josh Rosen only played in five games.”)

CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd evaluated the job security of all 130 FBS coaches and gave Mora a 3 rating, which means the “pressure is mounting.” ESPN’s Phil Steele has Mora as one of 13 coaches who are in “must-win mode.” (Link is ESPN Insider.) Steele writes that the Bruins need seven or eight wins to ease tension on Mora’s job.

Other links:

  • Athlon Sports predicts that UCLA will face NC State in the Sun Bowl. The Sun Bowl picks fifth in the Pac-12 for bowl-eligible teams and is paired with a team from the ACC.
  • An interesting Twitter exchange from UCLA commit Dorian Thompson-Robinson and UCLA center Scott Quessenberry. Thompson-Robinson was musing about about who he wants to follow him to Westwood to form his wide receiver core and Quessenberry, being the redshirt senior he is, quickly corrected the young quarterback and reminded him that it’s UCLA’s wide receiver core, not just his. You can tell why Quessenberry is a coach’s first choice to speak at Pac-12 Media Day even though he’s far from the headline-grabber Rosen is. For the record, Thompson-Robinson liked Quessenberry’s tweet.