Jim Mora, UConn Head Coach, on Seahawks Drafting Christian Haynes

Jim Mora, Head Coach of UConn football, joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the Seattle Seahawks drafting his former guard Christian Haynes, his skills and abilities to play on the line and what he’s like off the field, plus the Washington Huskies.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now back to Sophie and Dick s. What's radio ninety three point three kJ
r F Washington Huskies. I see, I'll crack you're home for the Huskies.
Play anything they need me to play, I'm gonna go outvan dominate regardless.
So then I just played a lotof white guard in college. I
played an any visition they need meto play, Christian, how'd you describe
your game? Somebody this smarting nakat the thing on. Somebody's very athletic.

(00:23):
You might be able to run alsodominate at the point the attack.
That is the voice of Christian Haynessix foot three, three seventeen per NFL
dot Com. But we always knowthat NFL dot Com is way off with
our heights and weights for some reason. Uh. He was the third round
pick for the Seahawks over the weekendat number eighty one overall, and his
college coach, an old friend,joined us now on the radio show Jim

(00:48):
L. Mora. Jimmy, howare you man? What's going on?
Well, I'm doing great. I'mexcited to talk about Christian and maybe another
special young lady that you have comeat to play for the Storm. So
absolutely, yeah, we will hiton all that, But first of all,
give us your thoughts on this kid, because I'm watching all this tape
on the guy. He looks thepart for sure, and I'm wondering why

(01:11):
he fell to eighty one in roundnumber three. Tell us about Christian haynes
Man, Well, number one,Seattle, the community is getting a tremendous
person who's going to add a lotto that community. And you know,
that's my home, so I caredeeply about it, and I don't think
you could find a better person tocome in and represent the Seahawks in that

(01:34):
community. He is just an amazing, amazing person. As a player,
he is a fierce, violent competitor, great teammate, very coachable, tremendous
leader. He's an actions over wordskind of guy. You know, he
he's going to live it every singleday. You know, I heard him
talking about, you know, playingwherever they wanted him. I think he's

(01:56):
a natural guard who can play center, and I think he fell because,
you know, guards not necessarily apremium position. You know how the draft
is, you study it. Offensivetackles and defensive ends typically would go before
guards, and those tackles, youknow, kind of if you group those
four positions together. But I thinkthat Seattle, regardless of where he was

(02:22):
picked, got a great player.I think he's going to play there for
fifteen years. I think, youknow, hopefully someday we're talking about him
like we talk about Steve Hutchinson.He's just I can't softie, I can't
say enough good things about Christian Haynes. Well we signed up for that,
no question about it. Jim Moorejoining us here. You mentioned right guard

(02:43):
potentially center, how about left guard? And what does it take for a
player to be able to play bothguard spots? And does he have those
traits? He does. He's gotthe athleticism, he's got the intelligence.
As a matter of fact, somethingI think is very telling about Christian Haynes
is that our our academic support stafflast year for athletics decided that they wanted

(03:07):
to name an award after the footballplayer who best represented academic excellence along with
athletic excellence. And uh, thevery first recipient and the name on the
award is Christian Haynes. It's theChristian Haynes Academic Excellence Award, and it's
uh, it's representative of who heis. So he's got the intelligence.

(03:30):
To play both guards. The athleticismplay both guards. You know, we
played him at center as well.Uh, mostly in practice, not in
games. But he can be adominant player, sockety. He's he's a
violent, uh nasty player who neverloses his cool. You know, he
can play right on the edge andnever hurt his team. When we played

(03:52):
Tennessee last year, it got itgot rough and tumble in there, and
those are some really good players acrossthe ball from him that Tennessee had,
and and he wrecked him all allafternoon to the point where as the game
was winding down they were taking somecheap shots on him out of frustration.
After the game, they kind ofcame after him a little bit, and

(04:13):
he, you know, he hadthe maturity to walk away. At the
senior ball, we all Senior Bowl, we all saw the incident where you
know, the defensive player in areal heated one on one drill through his
helmet and Christian calmly picked his helmetup and went on along his way.
So he can play with great violenceand great intensity, uh and not and
not hurt his team by stepping overthe line. Yeah, Jim, you

(04:35):
think he can play right away?I mean, there's a there's a need
for a guy to step in rightaway at right guard. Go Abe Lucas,
Charles Cross, Big o'lu from Michiganand Lake and Tomlinson the vet is
it left guard now? But couldhe can he step in start from day
one? You think, well,I don't know. I mean, I
don't know that team very well anymore, especially your right guard position. So

(04:56):
I haven't studied the right guards.But I can tell you this, he
will compete for it. No onewill out compete him, no one will
outwork him. I'm not saying thatthere are others on that team that are
great workers, but no one willoutwork Christian Haynes. Uh. He is
very coachable. He will pick upthe playbook quickly. He's quick to make
adjustments. He's an excellent communicator onthe field, and he will earn the

(05:17):
respect of that locker room, thatcoaching staff, that organization, in that
community. I wouldn't put it pasthim that he'd come in and and win
a starting job. Well, yourbest buddy, Hugh called the Seahawks guards
a borderline state of crisis. Sothat's before the draft, by the way,
before the draft, Christian Christian willprovide help. Then he's Look,

(05:41):
I said, Saftie, you know, I've coached a long time, you
know that, and I've been fortunateto be around a lot of great,
great players that are also great people. And this guy is right up there,
you know, with the very bestin terms of his potential to be
great on the field and the wayhe carries himself off the field and his
commitment to the game. So it'sa it's a huge gift for the Hawks

(06:02):
in that community. Coach talk aboutthe type of impact he had against the
elite competition that you guys faced.You guys faced uh Michigan, you faced
Tennessee, you had a ranked NCYstate team in twenty twenty two in your
first year. How does he riseto the occasion because those are the those
are the games, obviously the scottscouts are really watching. Yeah, whenever
a scout came in, we said, you know, turn on Tennessee because

(06:26):
you're gonna see him playing against youknow, very very good football players and
just watch how he dominates. Andyou know, we struggled obviously in some
of those games. You know,we're still trying to build something here.
It's been tough, uh it wastough coming here obviously, you know,
this place had been really, reallydown. But he's the kind of guy
that always gives you a chance,and he's the kind of guy that you

(06:48):
know, everyone wants to follow andeveryone wants to to uphold the standard that
he sets. And that's really impactful. You know. He was the kind
of guy shaft to you that youknow, his voice carried a ton of
weight. I mean, if hesaid something now, because he didn't say
a lot. When he said something, everybody listened. You know, he

(07:08):
said, hey, stop this crap, if you know, he didn't like
the way things stopped, you know, And I said this the other night
with Hugh is that you know,he was a guy that he demanded that
the old line be in the buildingat seven o'clock on Sunday mornings working out,
you know, and if someone didn'tshow, he was calling him and
saying, hey, get your buttdown here. But he was also the
guy that was saying, hey,we're going to church afterwards, you know,

(07:30):
and then I'm buying breakfast. Andyou know, that's the kind of
guy you want in your locker room. A great player that's also a great
character human being that's how you win, man, that's how you build.
You guys have seen that. Imean, that's one of the reasons Seattle's
been so good for so long isthat, you know, Pete and John
had focused not just on great players, but really good people that are high

(07:51):
football character and high off the fieldcharacter. Oh, no question. Jim
mora with us on the air.I wish you and your dad had the
same middle name, so I couldjust call you a junior. By the
way, drive you can do that. I mean, people can call me
that for it doesn't bother me.It only bothers my dad. Well,
Jim Moore Junior is with us onthe air, and dude, I got

(08:13):
to ask you as a as aHusky player, you know, Husky grad.
Uh, give us your take andall the change on Montlake Man with
Caitlin taking off for Alabama and JedFish coming in from Arizona. Well,
Jed was my OC for a yearat U c l A. I think
he's got a great offensive mind.Uh. You know, I obviously I
pull for the Huskies. I thinkthat it's a tough task coming in and

(08:37):
following up what's just happened there.And certainly, you know, we saw
the guys drafted the last three daysthat uh, you know, we're the
Purple and the Gold. So uhbut Jed's a good man, and he's
a he's a good football coach,and he'll do a heck of a job
recruiting, and uh, you know, my biggest concern is these East Coast
Huskies more so than those West CoastHuskies. But I'm always keeping an eye

(08:58):
on him and always cheering for him. Well, as you mentioned, coach,
another one of those East Coast Huskiesare coming west here to play for
the Seattle Storm. And I hearthat. You know Nika Mule pretty well,
what are we getting in our newpoint guard? A straight, hard
ass competitor, I mean she Iwould say this. We have a lot
of great athletes on this campus.I mean our you know, obviously our

(09:20):
men's and women's basketball team both arein the final four. Men won it.
Great competitors. There is not amore fierce competitor on this campus than
Nika Mule in the last three basketballseasons that I've seen. I absolutely love
her personality. I love her fearlesscompetitiveness. She's tough. She I mean,

(09:41):
you know, listen, she's Isay this with great admiration, and
I say it in a competitive way. She is just a straight dog with
a D A W G. SheI love her to death. You know,
Like if I was if I wasa student here and they said,
hey, we're a jersey to thegame, I'd be wearing number ten,

(10:03):
which is her number. Now I'mnot, Wow, so I can't.
I think you're a little bit weirdif the football coach walk in with a
number ten jersey on. But yeah, I got to meet her a few
times, and you know, heck, I was a little starstruck to be
To be honest, I have somuch admiration for Wow. Hey, dude,
before you go, I gotta askyou because obviously you spend a ton

(10:24):
of time in the NFL Falcon Seahawksobviously and Niners and working for the NFL
Network for a while as a broadcaster. What was your reaction over the weekend,
Jim, when the Falcons made MichaelPennox out of you dub the number
eight pick in the draft despite justgiving Kirk Cousins one hundred million dollars guaranteed.
Well, it was probably like everyonein Seattle was a mixed reaction.

(10:46):
Number One, I was extremely excitedfor Michael because I think he's a great
football player. But I was perplexedby it. I don't understand it.
I still don't understand it. Idon't think it sends a great message to
either Kirk Cousins or to Michael.You know, you're telling Kurt we're picking
your replacement, and you're telling Michael, hey, we don't think you're ready
to play yet right now. Idon't know that either of those messages are

(11:09):
very good messages. But I thinkat the end of the day, I
was fired up that somebody finally respectedthe talent that we all saw as Husky
fans and fans of Michael. Ilove it. Hey, listen, man,
great to hear your voice. Don'tbe a stranger. Best of luck
this year at Yukonna. We'll talksoon. Our ice coach all nice talking
to you, all right, guys. Jim Mora with us there on the

(11:31):
radio show, could not have beenmore complimentary about Christian Hayes, the offensive
guard drafted by the Seahawks. Andlet's face it, man, we've had
a lot of coaches that have beenI don't know, I mean, I
know that you know, Jim Lambrightfor years was accused of railroading Corey Dillon
before he went to the NFL Draft. There was a lot of coaches that
will tell you, you know,honestly, the guys aren't ready. But

(11:52):
he's almost putting his reputation on theline when he says things like that about
Christian Haynes. And I would beshocked, very surprised if your starting offensive
line was not Charles cross Lake andTomlin said big o'lu this kid and Abe
Lucas right tackle, barring somebody gettingbanged up. That seems like that is
the favorite in the clubhouse by alot. While I think you're right,

(12:15):
it depends on if he can pickeverything up that quickly because and we'll have
to see if Mike McDonald has thesame lean towards veterans that Pete Carroll did
right right, I mean Pete Carrollwanted Evan don't call me Ethan Brown in
there just because he'd started before,just because he had games there before.
So we'll have to see if hewants these guards that they picked up in

(12:35):
free agency to start the beginning ofthe year and work in Haynes slowly.
I'm wondering where this puts George Fanyou know guys like that. So we'll
see, but uh, look,I mean from a draft perspective. We'll
talk more about this with Humo atfour o'clock Factor for Factor Fiction. What
the Hell's wrong with Me? Funwith audio slash Hay Did you hear that?
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