UCLA hired Jim L. Mora to be its next football coach, as announced by Athletic Director Dan Guerrero on Saturday.

Mora, 50, will be the 17th coach in program history, replacing Rick Neuheisel who was fired by Guerrero on Nov. 28. Mora brings 25 years of NFL coaching experience to the UCLA program. Most recently, he was the head coach of two NFL teams: the Atlanta Falcons from 2004 to 2006 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2009. The Seahawks fired him after the 2009 season.

Mora will be payed roughly $12 million in guaranteed salary while his contract contains several performance-based incentives and bonuses.

“I realize that an opportunity of this magnitude doesn’t present itself more than once in a coaching career,” said Mora, whose father Jim E. Mora served as a UCLA assistant coach in 1974. “When the job was offered, I jumped at the chance to be a Bruin.”

This will be Mora’s first college head coaching job. His last assistant coaching job at the collegiate level came when he was a graduate assistant at the University of Washington in 1984, where he played as a defensive back. Both Guerrero and Mora acknowledged the challenges that come with being a first-time college coach but maintained no obstacle is too large.

“Although he’s never coached a game in college, the bottom line is he’s a terrific football coach,” Guerrero said. “He will surround himself with a staff that will aid in the transition from pro football to college football.”

Recruiting to a university, something Mora has never done, is among those challenges. Mora said he will use the credibility he gained from his work in the NFL, where he compiled a 31-33 record.

“I’m not naive enough to think I could just walk in day one and be an expert recruiter,” Mora said. “But if I surround myself with the coaches that have done it and people that have an expertise in it and I inject my personality and my passion into the process … we can convince some darn good football players to come to UCLA and be great student athletes for our program.”

In the two seasons since he has been out of coaching, Mora has served as a television analyst with Fox and the NFL Network. He was interviewed for multiple NFL assistant coaching positions in his time away but said he was waiting for the right opportunity to get back into college football.

“This isn’t something that just cropped up,” Mora said. “This has been a goal of mind since I left the Seattle Seahwaks. I’ve had a passion and a real strong desire to get back into coaching football and coaching football at the collegiate level.”

Mora, who officially accepted the position Saturday morning, has not made any decisions regarding the status of the current coaching staff at UCLA. The Bruins are preparing to play in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Dec. 31 against the Fighting Illini and start bowl practices on Sunday under the direction of interim coach and former offesnive coordinator Mike Johnson.

Johnson served as the quarterbacks coach for the Falcons during Mora’s first two seasons in Atlanta but Mora fired Johnson in 2005, but Mora says both have matured since.

He did leave the possibility of keeping current coaches on staff open.

“I don’t believe you have to go into a place and blow out the current coaches,” Mora said. “I’ve never believed that’s neccesarily the way to do it but our objective is to provide our student athletes with the finest coaches.”

Mora will call an NFL game for Fox on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. after which he will return briefly to his home in Seattle before holding an introductory press conference at UCLA sometime early next week.