Club football hires new coach to rebuild program

It’s a time of change and transition for the Wright State football team. A new head coach with a new mindset hopes to bring the program back to its winning ways after a disappointing 2012 campaign.

Keith Mora has taken over the reins of a WSU football program which after a few years of success, failed to win any games last season that weren’t due to forfeit. Mora is an undergraduate student majoring in sports science and was the strength and conditioning coach for the UAB Blazers football team this past summer.

“Hopefully the change brings an increase in stability from the top down and an increase in numbers,” Mora said. “In the past we ran things a little bit more loose, and I’m going to run things a little more like what a true NCAA college program would run like.”

The team currently has 24 members returning from last year’s squad and is looking to expand that number by recruiting the state of Ohio hard. Mora and his assistant coaches are recruiting 174 Ohio high school football players in the month of January alone, and will expand their search in the months to come. One of Mora’s strategies to entice players to come to WSU is a simple conversation about money.

WSU recruits players at the Division II or III college level. When you compare tuition and campus housing rates, WSU is significantly cheaper than Division II or III schools in the state of Ohio who can’t offer scholarships to their players.

“With our small team fee that we have, it’s still going to be around $15,000 to $20,000 less per year than what you would be paying at a Division II or III private school, and you’re going to get on the field here,” Mora said.

While Mora considers every position “at need”, the real keys to this recruiting process are finding linemen and defensive backs since Mora will be running a 4-2-5 defense this season.

The offseason program officially begins on Jan. 14 with weight lifting, followed by conditioning in February.

Mora believes in a “slow paced controlled offense where the big plays come from the defensive side.” The Raiders’ offense will be counted on to sustain drives and chew up some of the clock while primarily running the pistol offense.

Defensively, Mora would like to see as much speed on the field as he possibly can.

“My [defensive] philosophy is you put the 11 fastest guys on the field at one time, and that gives you a chance to win the game,” Mora said.

WSU hopes to play a 12 game schedule next season, and while that schedule won’t be released for a few months, Mora takes on all challengers and claims he’ll play any team in the nation.

“Any team in the nation we’ll schedule; I don’t care who it is,” Mora said. “If you give our entire coaching staff and players five months to prepare for you, I like my odds.”

Those odds will be tested this fall as the Raider football team looks to compete for a national championship once again.