{"id":265867,"date":"2026-04-25T12:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265867\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T12:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:44:19","slug":"how-jacob-rodriguez-left-his-mark-at-texas-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265867\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jacob Rodriguez Left His Mark at Texas Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">The Miami Dolphins were back at it for the NFL Draft on Friday night, and their first pick of the second round went to a man who has a game as big as the hair on his face. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/dolphins\/onsi\/why-the-dolphins-were-so-high-on-rodriguez-01kq0zfw0n68\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez from Texas Tech<\/a> was brought in to be one of the leaders of Miami\u2019s defense, but also has an appearance that distinguishes him from the rest of his peers. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">Rodriguez\u2019s mustache was something that was not expected to be taken seriously, but he learned one of the oldest adages in the history of mankind. <\/p>\n<p>Happy wife, happy life<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">\u201cYeah, it started as a joke,&#8221; Rodriguez told the South Florida media in a Zoom session. &#8220;My wife ended up loving it. And so, you know, I got to keep it and, yeah, it kind of took the community by storm this year. It was myself, and then a couple of guys on the team who had it going.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">\u201cAnd by the end of the season, we had little girls who were 3 years old, or women who were in the 70s and 80s wearing the dark mustaches for games. And so I don&#8217;t think I can abandon that. I think it&#8217;s a part of who I am, and kind of just represents that toughness of being a Texan. And so I appreciate it, but it&#8217;s a good talking point, too. It&#8217;s a good icebreaker. And so I think it helps.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">Of course, Rodriguez is not married simply because his wife likes his mustache. She&#8217;s an Army helicopter pilot and he was very complimentary of her, pointing out that she was one of the biggest reasons he was able to stay level throughout the draft process. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">Rodriguez&#8217;s wife is stationed in Kansas, and so the two maintain a long-distance relationship.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">\u201cYeah, my wife is a huge counterpart to me, and she keeps me on the straight and narrow in everything I do,\u201d Rodriguez said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"79\">\u201cSo she&#8217;s actually fortunate enough to be here tonight, so she&#8217;s here with me, and the whole family&#8217;s out here. So it&#8217;s she means a lot to me and everything that she does in her professional life, but most about how much she&#8217;s is able to support me, and hold me through this entire process.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">His wife was not alone in helping Rodriguez through the process, as he had some help in the form of former Dolphins great Zach Thomas. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7f\">\u201cHe just kind of reminded me of what he went through and this process that he kind of went through, and how he had to believe in himself and just kind of hold true to what he&#8217;s had kind of what he&#8217;s earned. And, especially being from West Texas, you gotta work hard every day, and that&#8217;s kind of got to be your routine. And so just feeding into a lot of the day-to-day stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7i\">The good news? Rodriguez is not changing. Not only is he going to remain the same player he was that got him to the NFL, he is keeping his trademark, as it will be joining him when he makes the trek to Miami to become a member of the Dolphins. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7l\">\u201cI will, yes sir.\u201d Rodriguez said, definitively.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Dolphins were back at it for the NFL Draft on Friday night, and their first pick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-265867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}