Taylor Mays Received UW Coaching Opportunity That Few Get

Taylor Mays has that recognizable football name, the USC pedigree, still an NFL body with his big biceps.

Yet when University of Washington spring football begins on April 2, in some ways this new safeties coach will be no different than all of those freshmen football players who take part in a Husky practice for the first time, mixing in with the veterans and trying to show they belong.

For Mays, it will be: Can he coach?

Knocking down an opponent with a fearsome hit is one thing, but instilling confidence in young players to be able to do the same is totally something else.

Almost every assistant coach who takes a full-time job at the UW has handled that responsibility somewhere else before he's arrived in Montlake.

Mays, a Seattle native, is the exception. The three-time All-American safety comes to the Huskies after spending three seasons at USC as a defensive analyst, as someone only now removing the coaching training wheels.

"I've been really fortunate to be provided with this opportunity to come home," Mays said last month, meeting with the Seattle media for the first time.

Indeed, that he has.

Just one other Husky assistant football coach over previous decades has been hired without any prior full-time coaching experience -- Rip Rowan.

In 2021, Rowan was elevated to UW defensive-line coach by Jimmy Lake with just a couple of seasons of grad work in Montlake behind him.

Usually Husky assistant coaches are hired after they've led a position group somewhere else, but Lake promoted multiple guys in his system who either had no experience or very minimal years on the job in tight-ends coach Derham Cato, defensive-backs coach Terrance Brown and Rowan.

It was one of the reasons Lake got fired, not just that angry shove of his of a UW player caught on a national TV broadcast.

Coaches, of course, have to start somewhere, but continuity in recruiting, teaching and inspiring players doesn't just happen overnight.

While those other yearling coaches turned out OK -- Rowan, in fact, was just hired by the Las Vegas Raiders as a defensive assistant -- Lake had way too many who were just getting started in the business.

For that matter, Lake had never been a head coach before getting promoted and replacing the retiring Chris Petersen. It was one reason the Huskies went 4-8 in 2021. Experience counts for a lot.

As for Mays, he turned to coaching after he'd run out of pro football playing opportunities and then decided a broadcasting career wasn't a good fit for him.

"I kind of like being more behind the scenes," Mays said.

He went back to his alma mater and asked then Trojans coach Clay Helton if he could join his staff in some manner, but two things happened: COVID and Helton got fired.

On the rebound, Helton was hired by Georgia Southern, where he remains today and where he had Rowan as his defensive-line coach for the past three seasons.

Mays, 37, will work for Jedd Fisch's staff after three seasons as that USC analyst. Without any prodding, he pursued a Husky job vacated by Vinnie Sunseri, another former NFL safety who's now a co-defensive coordinator at Florida.

Sunseri, 33, received his full-time coaching start with the New England Patriots and, after a lone season at the UW, is sort of on a coaching fast track now, first going to Jacksonville State before ending up with the Gators.

Meantime, his Husky successor is feeling his way around, similar to being a USC freshman or an NFL rookie.

"I reached out first, or at least I think I did," Mays said, explaining how his Husky job came together. "I tried to and it kind of just went from there."

Either way, he's a coaching newcomer of sorts.