Michigan assistant joining Jim Mora's UConn staff

Jim Mora is bringing in a coach from Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan staff to the North East. According to Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel, Ryan Osborn is joining Mora’s staff at UConn.

“Sources: UConn expected to hire Ryan Osborn from Michigan as defensive line coach and Dalton Hilliard from Arkansas State as an assistant coach for defense,” tweeted Thamel. “Hilliard played for Jim Mora at UCLA. Osborn worked as an off-field assistant at Michigan.”

Osborn is leaving Michigan on a high note. The Wolverines had their biggest win in decades on Saturday — defeating Ohio State and booking a ticket to the Big Ten title game.

Now, he’ll hope to help Jim Mora bring the Connecticut Huskies to national relevance.

More on Jim Mora, UConn

Jim Mora hasn’t coached since 2017, after he was fired by the UCLA Bruins. Prior to his time at UCLA, Mora was a head coach in the NFL at two different stops — the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.

Moreover, the school revealed that Mora will be designated as an assistant coach through the end of the 2021 season — allowing him to begin his recruiting responsibilities. Afterwards, he’ll officially become the head coach on November 28th.

Since his time at UCLA ended, Mora has been an analyst for ESPN. Now, it seems he’s looking to get back into coaching. Surprisingly, he’s taking one of the more challenging jobs in the nation.

UConn hasn’t had a winning season since 2010. With Jim Mora, they’re swinging big to fix their troubles once and for all.

Furthermore, Mora’s hire lines-up with UConn’s lofty goal to become a prominent brand of football in the area. Since the football program left their conference so the Huskies’ powerhouse basketball programs could be part of the Big East, UConn viewed this hire as important to staying in the picture as a Northeast independent.

“I’m not going to compare ourselves to the likes of Notre Dame,” UConn athletic director David Benedict told Yahoo’s Pete Thamel earlier this year. “But BYU is not necessarily so far out of the realm of comparison that we can’t establish ourselves like BYU as an independent.”

Jim Mora being the guy for UConn signals a new era for the program. They’re taking their football program seriously, and are hoping to develop a new era of Huskies football. Eventually, we could look back at this as the first domino that fell in their quest for respectability.