UCLA's Jim Mora on Everett Golson: 'I don't want mercenaries on my team'

UCLA was considered one of the dark horses in the running for Notre Dame transfer Everett Golson, but the quarterback instead took his talents to Tallahassee to join Florida State.

It turns out UCLA may not have been in the running for Golson after all, based on comments Bruins head coach Jim Mora made in an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show on Friday.

I just believe in growing your own, ... cultivating your own talent. There was a lot of speculation that we might be interested in Everrett Golson because we do have a young quarterback group and we have a very veteran team, but we never even talked about it. I don't want mercenaries on my team. I want guys that grew up in our culture and understand what we're all about. I think that when you bring in a fifth year guy, especially at a position like quarterback, he has too much influence on guys that I want to have influence on and our staff wants to have influence on our other players. ... In order to have sustained success, in my estimation, you have to build a culture. When you bring in mercenaries, I think you fracture that culture.

Mora qualified his comments by saying that Golson is a great quarterback and that Jimbo Fisher has won a national title, which he hasn't.

Mora also noted the difference between bringing in a quarterback versus bringing in a player at another position. The Bruins brought in offensive lineman Malcolm Bunche from Miami as a graduate transfer this past season.