UCLA fired head coach Jim Mora in November after going a disappointing 5-6 through the first 11 games of the 2017 season. A week later, they turned to former Oregon, Eagles, and 49ers coach Chip Kelly to replace him, tearing Kelly away from his one season at ESPN.
Now, ESPN will be replacing Kelly in the analyst’s chair with…Mora. On Tuesday, they announced Mora’s hiring, noting that he would be stepping in for Kelly as a studio analyst on ESPN2 alongside host Chris Cotter and fellow analyst Emmanuel Acho, on loan from Longhorn Network. Acho initially filled in for Kelly after he took the UCLA job alongside Cotter and Jonathan Vilma, and Vilma was promoted to the ABC studio set last week with Booger McFarland’s ascension to Monday Night Football. So maybe if you want to get technical, Acho actually replaced Kelly (on an interim basis) and Mora replaced Vilma, but it’s more fun to think that Mora and Kelly switched jobs.
Just for the hell of it, I polled Twitter to see who would have a better year: Chip Kelly, head coach, or Jim Mora, analyst. The results tilted pretty substantially towards Kelly.
Here's a dumb poll question: who has a better year in their new job previously held by the other, Chip Kelly (in Jim Mora's old job) or Jim Mora (in Chip Kelly's old job)?
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 24, 2018
Also on Tuesday, ESPN announced that Joey Galloway had agreed to a multi-year extension with ESPN, and would remain working with Adnan Virk and Jesse Palmer on ESPN’s main studio crew.
In case you’re keeping score at home…
ABC studio: Kevin Negandhi, Mack Brown, Jonathan Vilma
ESPN studio: Adnan Virk, Joey Galloway, Jesse Palmer
ESPN2 studio: Chris Cotter, Emmanuel Acho, Jim Mora
Got it? Good.
[ESPN]
