Signs of things to come: A&M gave Bengals’ Taylor his start
COLLEGE STATION — Mike Sherman knew the importance of his daughter, Sarah, having her husband by her side for the birth of their first child in November 2010. Sherman also knew the importance of Texas A&M vs. Texas — and he needed his sonin-law by his side in a big way.
“He’s invaluable on the sideline because we have a lot of different signals,” Sherman once recalled of his daughter’s husband, Zac Taylor, signaling in A&M’S offensive plays as a graduate assistant during Sherman’s
Aggies tenure.
“If I ever had to do those signals, we might get three or four plays off in the course of a game.”
A&M had won five straight behind quarterback Ryan Tannehill entering its always-hyped contest in Austin, all while Sherman was keeping tabs on becoming a grandfather.
“Sarah was having contractions intermittently over the last month of the season,” Sherman said. “I was a little nervous that Zac might miss the Texas game.”
The Aggies defeated the Longhorns 24-17 that night in Royalmemorial Stadium with Taylor wiggling and signaling on the sideline. It turned out to be Sherman’s lone victory over A&M’S rival in his four seasons in College Station from 2008-11.
“After the game we were leaving Austin and I texted my daughter and said, ‘You can have the baby now,’ and she had the baby the next morning,” Sherman said with a grin. “Great clock management by a coach’s daughter.”
It also was one of the early tales of what’s become a charmed coaching career for Taylor, a former Nebraska quarterback who naturally had to put up with questions about his early coaching acumen considering his father-in-law handed him his first real job out of college following a brief attempt as a pro quarterback.
Taylor, who soared to the level of “graduate assistant” with the Aggies a little more than a decade ago, this weekend will lead the Cincinnati Bengals into their first conference title game since 1988, snapping the longest such drought in the NFL.
By comparison, the Houston Texans entered the league in 2002. The 12-7 Bengals, who
edged Tannehill and the Tennessee Titans 19-16 last Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., face the Kansas City Chiefs (14-5) at 2 p.m. Sunday in the AFC Championship Game in Arrowhead Stadium.
“I know we haven’t been here before,” a confident Taylor said, “but it sure feels like we have.”
Along with Taylor’s A&M ties, Rice also has plenty to be proud of with the Bengals’ stunning success: Two former players in the same Owls recruiting class (2007) are assisting Taylor. James Casey is in his second season coaching tight ends and Justin Hill is in his first season tutoring the running backs.
The Bengals, who played in two Super Bowls in the 1980s but failed to win either, last weekend won on the road in the postseason for the first time in franchise history. They did so behind a former A&M sideline signaler and an old A&M nemesis in Joe Burrow, the smooth quarterback who led LSU to the 2019 national title and a 50-7 hammering of the Aggies en route to it.
A&M fired Sherman following a 6-6 finish to the 2011 regular season and the Miami Dolphins picked up the former Green Bay Packers head coach as offensive coordinator for the 2012 season. Sherman brought along his son-in-law as assistant quarterbacks coach, again raising questions of nepotism and whether Taylor was worthy
of even a minor NFL job while still in his 20s and with so little experience.
Taylor, 38, was raised in Norman, Okla., is the son of former Oklahoma defensive back Sherwood Taylor. A columnist in The Oklahoman dubbed Zac Taylor an NFL draft day “loser” in 2012.
“Assistant QB coach usually is a pleasant slot, not a lot of scrutiny,” the
columnist opined. “But Miami drafted Texas A&M’S Ryan Tannehill, an absolute project, to be its quarterback. Sherman and Taylor coach Tannehill at A&M, (and) their NFL futures rest solely on Tannehill’s progression.”
That one missed the mark. Tannehill, only five years Taylor’s junior at 33, played for the Dolphins from 2012-18 and was the
NFL’S comeback player of the year in 2019 with the Titans. Taylor had left the Dolphins following the 2015 season and spent a year as the University of Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator, an early introduction to the Queen City along the Ohio River.
Taylor then spent two seasons (2017-18) on the offensive side of the ball with the Los Angeles Rams before he was surprisingly named the Bengals’ 10th head coach in February 2019.
This time around there was no Sherman and summonses of nepotism — Taylor had earned this gig on his own. The youngster (relatively speaking) was 2-14 in 2019 and 4-11-1 in 2020 and through this past weekend still has twice as many losses as wins early
in his head coaching career (16-32-1).
But in the world of what have you done for me lately, Bengals fans are ecstatic with their former A&M sideline signal guy.
“We have such a tremendous fan base that supports this team through thick and thin,” Taylor said.
As for Sherman’s first grandchild born the day after Taylor sent in plays for Tannehill and the Aggies in what is still A&M’S last victory over UT? Brooks Michael Taylor turned 11 in November — the first of Zac and Sarah’s four children.
“I got second billing on the name,” Sherman joked at the time. “But I’ll take what I can get.”