Washington Expected to Hire Former USC Safety Taylor Mays

In keeping with hiring former NFL players to coach safeties at the University of Washington, coach Jedd Fisch is expected to hire O'Dea High School standout and ex-USC Trojans safety Taylor Mays. 

According to multiple reports the Huskies will have the four-time All-American replace Vinnie Sunseri, who left to become the defensive coordinator at Jacksonville State, as the safeties coach for the 2025 season. 

Mays, a second-round pick (No. 49 overall) in the 2010 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, spent seven seasons in the league before returning to his college alma mater to serve as an assistant defensive backs coach for Lincoln Riley. 

A one-time five-star recruit in the 2006 class out of O'Dea, a private Seattle-area high school that has produced many UW players, highlighted by record-setting running back Myles Gaskin, Mays is a unique choice for Fisch since the two never crossed paths during their time in the NFL. 

However, the draw for the Huskies' coach to bring back a former highly touted recruit from Seattle — whose father Stafford Mays also coaches at O'Dea where four-star defensive line target Fameitau Siale and three-star David Schwerzel reside in the 2026 class — that has an NFL pedigree was too much to pass up. 

Mays earned First Team All-American honors as a Trojan his final three seasons under former coach Pete Carroll after being named Second Team All-American as a freshman, one of three USC players to earn Co-Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors. 

He'll inherit a talented safeties room at UW that returns senior Makell Esteen in addition to a slew of underclassmen, most notably Rahim Wright II, Rahshawn Clark and sophomore Vincent Holmes. 

The Huskies also signed a pair of veterans in the transfer portal, senior CJ Christian from Florida International and junior Alex McLaughlin from Northern Arizona, which should give Mays and new defensive coordinator Ryan Walters plenty to work with in 2025.