in a state sandwiched in an area with a ton of the elite programs in the nation trying to poach talent. Two P5's in some of the smallest cities in all of CFB, and you have Bama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee and others all poaching from a state that isn't awfully big. California is the size of a small country. Everyone tries poaching that state too (and they succeed), but there's just so many people there. UCLA is in the largest state in the nation in a great location. They also have easier schedules than State and Ole Miss.

It's hard to say State has underperformed. That year they had the really good team and were ranked #2 for a while, that depth chart was loaded with 2 and 3 star recruits. They've always been the "country" school and looked down on by Ole Miss that was supposed to be classy. Maybe you could make an argument for Ole Miss, but I wouldn't say UCLA has it anywhere close to as hard as them. Especially because they DO get the recruits. They DO get loaded classes, and Mora just couldn't get anything accomplished with them even in a weak conference and SC being somewhat down lately.
They've had no excuses. One year they had more players declare early than any other program, and had a ton of draft picks. They couldn't get anything done with that team. Mora sucked at actually winning with the level of NFL talent he constantly had.