Dayton Wade and Jonathan Mingo still 'facetime' before Ole Miss games and even draw up plays
The relationship between Dayton Wade and Jonathan Mingo was forged during the 2022 season, which was Mingo’s last at Ole Miss before heading to the NFL.
Now Mingo is with the Carolina Panthers and one game into his rookie season while Wade is still with the Rebels and becoming a mainstay in the offense.
Despite not sharing a locker room anymore the two are still close and talk as often as possible each week. That even includes the night before Wade takes the field with Ole Miss.
When speaking with the local media after Tuesday’s practice Wade spoke about the importance of former Ole Miss players giving back to the current ones.
“Mingo, I still talk to Mingo,” Wade said. “Every night before the game he’ll Facetime me like, ‘Hey, what they look like? What’s you thinking? This might work.’ He even helped draw up some plays (for) Mercer. He talked to me, I wrote it down and I was like, ‘Bam, I’m going to show coach.'”
What those plays were Wade would not disclose or if they ran any against Mercer that Mingo came up. He did mention how Mingo saw some similarities in the Rebels season-opening opponent and another team Ole Miss faced last season.
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“We ran the play last year and they had similar defense,” Wade said. “(Mingo) was like, ‘Okay, this worked when we ran, like this worked when we ran (it last year).’ I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we might get that same look depending on how (Mercer lines up).”
Wade struck up a relationship with Mingo as he was trying to adjust to his new surroundings at Ole Miss.
Despite having his own responsibilities and schedule with the Panthers each weekend, preparing for games on Sundays Mingo does not let that hamper his friendship with Wade.
“Reach one, teach one,” Wade said. “There’s some things that I can’t do, some things that they can’t do. So it’s like, ‘I can help you get better with this, you can help me get better at this.’ It ain’t no like oh he know everything, he ‘Mr. The guy.’ …We more so have a humble approach. So I’m like, ‘I’m ready to learn, you’re ready to learn. We all just ready to learn.’ That really just make the game a whole lot easier versus being stuck in your old ways.”
Mingo might not be in the Ole Miss locker room any more but his philosophy and the culture he helped create within the receivers room still is. Wade is trying his best to carry on that education to the next wave of Rebels.
