Five Things to Know About New ULM Offensive Coordinator Jaleel Mosley
ULMWarhawks.com Staff • 4 min read
Away from the field, ULM's new coordinator has a favorite card game most people wouldn't guess and a rule about postgame conversations he's carried through every stop of his career.
1. He's a serious spades player
Mosley grew up playing spades and has kept the habit through every coaching stop, often running games with fellow assistants during long staff hours in-season. Colleagues have described him as quietly ruthless at the table.
"It's a partner game," Mosley said. "You've got to read your partner, read the table, know when to push and when to sit back. There's a lot of overlap with what I do for a living."
2. He has a rule: no talking football with players for 24 hours after a game
Mosley enforces what his players have come to call the "24-hour rule" — for one full day after every game, win or lose, he won't discuss the game itself with any of his players. It's a boundary meant to give them room to decompress emotionally before diving back into corrections and film.
"Right after a game, everything's too loud," Mosley said. "You're too high or too low. Nobody's actually hearing you. I'd rather let it breathe a day, then sit down and really talk through what happened once guys can actually listen."
Mosley has said he developed the rule after seeing how quickly emotional postgame conversations could sour a player's week, regardless of how the game went and made a point, once he had any say in a program's routine, to build in that buffer.
3. He keeps a handwritten notebook from every season he's coached
Mosley has kept a physical notebook for every single year of his career, dating back to his GA days at McMurry in 2009 , seventeen notebooks in total, packed with install notes, quotes from other coaches, and things he wants to remember to do differently next time. He doesn't type any of it up.
"Typing it just makes it information," Mosley said. "Writing it down makes it stick. I go back and read old ones more than people would guess. Some of what I wrote down at 24 still holds up. Some of it I'd never do again but I want to remember why I thought it back then, too."
4. A specific assignment at Washington State reshaped how he sees the game
During his six seasons as an off-field offensive assistant under Mike Leach, one of Mosley's first real coaching responsibilities was charting games, logging every single offensive and defensive snap by down, distance, formation, and result. It's tedious, unglamorous work, but Mosley has credited it with fundamentally changing how he processes football.
"When you chart a game, you're not watching it as a fan or even as a coach in the moment," Mosley said. "You're watching every play as data. Down, distance, formation, result, over and over. It forces you to see the whole picture instead of just the play in front of you. That's when football stopped being instinct for me and started being information."
Even after being promoted into on-field roles, Mosley has kept the habit, and staffers say he still occasionally charts games informally on his own just to stay sharp.
5. He's a self-taught Spanish speaker
Growing up in San Antonio, Mosley picked up conversational Spanish from teammates and coaches long before he ever needed it professionally. It became a genuine asset later in his career while recruiting in Texas, allowing him to talk directly with players and their families without needing a translator in the room.
"It's not about being fluent," Mosley said. "It's about a kid's mom knowing you respect her enough to try. That goes a long way in a home visit."
