Report: Former Miami Dolphins defensive star in talks to join Hurricanes staff

Mario Cristobal is looking to bring a Miami legend to the Hurricanes. According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, Dolphins legend Jason Taylor is in talks to join Cristobal’s Hurricanes staff.

“Jason Taylor and Mario Cristobal have been discussing a job on UM staff, per two people briefed on situation,” tweeted Jackson. “Consultant or analyst role among options. Possibility of this first mentioned by @CaneSport.”

It’s easy to see why Cristobal is interested in bringing Taylor into the fold. While he’s devoid of coaching experience, he’s one of the best linebackers to ever play the game. Additionally, he knows how to handle Miami — playing 13 of his 15 NFL season with the Dolphins.

A defensive savant, Jason Taylor was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017 — a first ballot selection. His immense respect in the football world — especially in Miami — will help Mario Cristobal give another powerful voice to teach his athletes.

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Furthermore, Mario Cristobal made quite the splash when he decided to leave the Oregon Ducks for the Miami Hurricanes this off-season. Earlier this month, Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports spoke with Paul Finebaum of ESPN on The Paul Finebaum Show. Feldman talked about why he thinks Cristobal could be the perfect fit for the Hurricanes football program.

“Well, I think some of the things that have helped him right now, Miami, financially has the resources to compete with other top programs. You know when Miami was winning national titles, it was in spite of their facilities. In spite of their resources. They just had better talent than everyone else. I mean, what I think, if you’re a Miami fan, bodes well for the program is Mario Cristobal can recruit with anybody and he’s got a ton of juice within the state of Florida, especially in South Florida,” Feldman said.

“And I think if you’re Josh Gattis. If you’re Kevin Steele. You know they’re going to upgrade the talent level there. He’s gonna be demanding because that’s kind of what he came from both as a guy who was on championship teams at Miami. And then he learned the Alabama recruiting model. He took a lot of that with him to Oregon. And he basically built the team that I think USC used to be. He built that in Eugene, Oregon as best he could,” the longtime college football expert noted.

“I think taking that to Miami, where they have been starved for success, and it has been a long, long time. I think most of the players he’s recruiting don’t remember when Miami was on top of the college football world. But again, we’ve seen other programs have big droughts when they bounced back, and they bounced back and had a lot of success. But it has been a long time. Now, you’ve seen Mario Cristobal make some moves early on. Even putting together a recruiting class late that’s made a pretty big impact there,” Feldman said.