MIAMI BEACH \u2014 Monday brings their journey\u2019s end, and Jason Taylor knows it. Just last week he did a Google search of his prized students, Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, to remember how it started and measure how far they\u2019d come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found a picture of Rueben with no facial hair \u2014 now he\u2019s full-bearded,\u2019\u2019 said Taylor, the University of Miami\u2019s defensive line coach and Miami Dolphins Hall of Famer. \u201cMess came here with these frosted tips in his dreadlocks. He shaved them off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami\u2019s championship game against Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium ends this season where the primary key for the Hurricanes once again will be the ability of Bain and Mesidor to pressure the opposing quarterback, this time Indiana star Fernando Mendoza.<\/p>\n
But this game also ends one of the more compelling teams within a Miami team. You don\u2019t know who\u2019s been more fortunate in this coaching\/players relationship: Taylor, for getting to work with two top talents who will be high NFL draft picks; or Bain and Mesidor for learning from a Hall of Fame talent with a matching personality to help them succeed to the NFL.<\/p>\n
Each day for the past couple of seasons, Bain and Mesidor would sit in Taylor\u2019s office and \u201ctalk everything but football,\u2019\u2019 as Mesidor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics, news, Canada (Mesidor is Canadian) \u2014 whatever comes up,\u201d Taylor said Saturday at the championship game\u2019s media day at the Miami Beach Convention Center.<\/p>\n
By now they put their relationship with Taylor in family terms of, \u201clike father-son,\u2019\u2019 as Bain says or, \u201colder brother to younger brother,\u2019\u2019 Mesidor says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re like extra sons to me,\u2019\u2019 Taylor said.<\/p>\n
Taylor helped recruit Bain in his opening steps as a college coach four years ago. Bain grew up in Miami and knew Taylor\u2019s NFL fame, unlike Mesidor who grew up in Ottawa and didn\u2019t follow football much as a youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody told me he was a Hall of Famer when I got here,\u2019\u2019 Mesidor said. \u201cSo, I did the research myself and, yeah, he was awesome.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
That was Taylor, the havoc-raising edge rusher and commanding locker-room presence. That player never saw this next chapter coming. He coached his sons, Mason and Isaiah, in youth leagues and high school. That led to his taking a job when Mario Cristobal arrived at Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to laugh at the coaches after we\u2019d fly back from a night game and finally get to the facility, and I\u2019d leave in my car and go home for two days and they\u2019d go upstairs to watch film,\u2019\u2019 Taylor said. \u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018You guys are idiots.\u2019 Now, I\u2019m the guy who goes in the office.\u2018\u2019<\/p>\n
Now, he also borrows ideas from his coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Dave Wannstedt, Nick Saban and Tony Sparano.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou take all the lessons, some of the stuff you heard them say \u2014 sometimes you thought was coachspeak,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI use those same tricks now and sometimes think, \u2018I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m doing this.\u2019\u2018\u2019<\/p>\n
Look at the results. Bain and Mesidor led Miami to 12 sacks in the playoff games against Texas A&M and Ohio State. The numbers weren\u2019t there against Mississippi, but that\u2019s only because Ole Miss altered its offense, as Bain said.<\/p>\n
Taylor saw all types of players across his career. Mesidor is the football thinker, the guy who wants to not just understand his role but have backup plans for any variable. Taylor says how at times in meetings he\u2019ll have to say the offense would never do that fourth or fifth idea Mesidor brings up while Bain will sit there and \u201cjust shake his head over the rabbit hole we\u2019ve gone down.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s their common ground to greatness: \u201cI\u2019ve never been around two guys at this age who work harder than Bain and Mess,\u2019\u2019 Taylor said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy. It\u2019s to the point we had to pull them back to work less. We butted heads at times on that, making them get off the practice field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to get them to game day and save their legs. They want to practice more. We\u2019re literally, not coming to blows, but tears were shed. That\u2019s how much it matters to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, now comes their last game. Farewells sometimes have a moment of their own. Taylor\u2019s final game came in this same stadium back when it was called Sun Life Stadium on Jan 1, 2012. A defensive stand closed out the Dolphins\u2019 tight win against the New York Jets. Taylor was then carried around the field by teammates.<\/p>\n
If Bain and Mesidor are carried off, it\u2019s because of a title for Miami. Monday is more a graduation for them than an end, though. The NFL awaits them. Taylor watched them grow like a proud football papa. Now the former star says as his students approach the biggest game of their career, \u201cIt\u2019s their time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI BEACH \u2014 Monday brings their journey\u2019s end, and Jason Taylor knows it. Just last week he did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[339,7,929,2972,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-685248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-miami-hurricanes","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115912975700345605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}