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Sometimes a number is just a number.
 
Sometimes, it means so much more.
 
For Miami sophomore defensive end Bai Jobe, the No. 22 jersey he wears for the Red and White has layer upon layer of profound significance.
 
His birthday is December 22.
 
His mother's birthday is also December 22.
 
And seven years ago, he lost his mother on December 22.
 
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Bai Jobe wanted to play in the NBA someday.
 
That's why the youngster initially decided to move 5,000 miles away from his native Senegal in eighth grade to be an exchange student in Norman, Okla.
 
"I was a hooper," Jobe smiled. "I started playing basketball when I was 11 years old, and somehow I was good at it.
 
"I grew up watching Russell Westbrook; I was so athletic that I could dunk. I started dunking when I was 13…and then my first place in America was Oklahoma, so I got to go watch [Westbrook] play with the Thunder, which was really cool."
 
When Jobe moved across the Atlantic in 2018, he left his family behind in Africa —mom, dad, brother and sisters— and settled in with a host family in the Sooner State.
 
"All I was looking for my whole life was opportunity," Jobe said. "I come from a place that not too many people make it. Not many people get the opportunity to come to the U.S. and show their talent.
 
"At that time, my mom was very sick: She had bone cancer," Jobe continued. "She wanted me to come here and get a better education…I definitely wanted to come and reach my goal. But I thought it was going to be easy."
 
The prolonged pause before Jobe's next sentence spoke volumes.
 
"It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."
 
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As if it wasn't difficult enough to get used to a new culture, new people, new language, new place and new life, just six short weeks after Jobe arrived in America was the day he'll never forget.
 
On December 22, 2018, he turned 14 years old, celebrating a birthday that he had always shared with his mother.
 
And on that same day, on the other side of the world, Jobe's mother, Ndeye Jallow, died of cancer.
 
"After that, it was a rough time," Jobe said quietly. "My mom [had always been the one] at home taking care of me because my dad was always gone working. She was my right hand. My everything…
 
"All of the stuff that I'm doing, I'm really doing it to make her proud…she passed away on my birthday and her birthday, and I feel like I've got to honor her."
 
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Jobe remained in the United States after receiving the tragic news of his mother's passing and spent the next several years continuing to chase his dreams on the hardwood. "I was hooping the whole time, and a lot of coaches, whenever they saw me, used to ask, 'Do you play football?'," Jobe recounted. "I always said no. Even my high school coaches were always telling me, 'Come play, come play.' I'd say, 'No, I want to go to the NBA. I want to be like Russell Westbrook.'"
 
That all changed on a fall Friday night during his sophomore year at Community Christian High, when Jobe accompanied his now-foster parent, Dr. Jim Bond (a local orthopedic surgeon who often worked on the sidelines) to a high school football game. "I ended up going with him, and I saw this dude that I used to play basketball with. He played receiver," Jobe said. "I saw him out there: He was catching the ball, and it was crazy. I looked at myself and said, 'If THIS guy can do this, I can do this!'
 
"On the way back, I was talking to my host family, saying 'Should I play football?' They said, 'Yeah, I think you can be really good.' But it was the middle of the season, and I didn't know if I could start.
 
"The head coach told me, 'Anytime you want to start, you can come.' That was Friday, and I practiced on Monday and played in the game the next week."
 
Jobe, who knew absolutely nothing about the sport when he started, admitted he wasn't sure the gridiron experiment would last. "I played just a little bit in that game, and then I said, 'No, I'm not doing this. It's November, basketball is starting, and I'm just wasting my time.'"
 
But his football coach (also the school's athletic director) had other ideas. "He brought up this rule and said, 'If you start a sport, you've got to finish it to be able to play another sport,'" laughed Jobe. To this day, Jobe admits he's not 100% sure if that rule actually existed previously or not, but, regardless, it did the trick and kept him in football pads for the rest of the year. "I just stuck with it and kept working. Then the first time I got my first sack, it was cool to go hit somebody, like, "Let's go! Let's go!' And that's how I really fell in love with the game," he said.
 
The rest, as they say, is history.
 
Only a matter of months after his football career began, Jobe was a four-star recruit, eventually earning recognition as the top-ranked prospect in his class in the state of Oklahoma and making it clear he had an even brighter future in his brand-new sport than in his other one. Jobe racked up 16.5 sacks as a high school junior (while also returning kicks and playing receiver), snagged offers from all the biggest programs in the country, and ultimately chose Michigan State the next summer over a group of finalists that included Alabama and Oklahoma.
 
After the Spartans' coach was fired during Jobe's redshirt year in 2023, Jobe transferred to Kansas, where he played seven games a year ago as a freshman before entering the portal once more.
 
"I was really looking for a family, somewhere I can go and fit and be with, since I'm from Africa and my American family is all the way in Oklahoma," Jobe explained. "I wanted to be with coaches who really care about me and show me love so I can translate to the field. That's the biggest reason why I came to Miami: They have a really great coaching staff who care about players and have a really good relationship with them…
 
"They always help me get better. I can call them anytime and they're always there for me. I feel like that's love: I can go fight for them on the field, and they can fight for me."
 
"I think that's why he chose it here: It felt like home when he met us," said head coach Chuck Martin. "We have a very unique place here with our coaching staff – when your offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator have been here for 11 years with you and a lot of our coaches have played here…it really is a family here at Miami and we really do take care of our kids.
 
"I think he felt that and sensed that and thought it was the right fit."
 
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The RedHawks are expecting Jobe to make an impact for the Red and White this year and into the future, and the young edge rusher has already shown glimpses of that potential, producing his first career tackle for loss in week two against Rutgers.
 
"He's got great raw materials and great genetics, he's a willing learner, and he's eager to be really good," Martin said. "He wants to put in the work to be good…
 
"The sky's the limit for Bai. He has the right mental approach, he loves the game, he loves to take coaching, and he loves to figure out what he knows and what he doesn't know.
 
"He's going to get better every single week the rest of his career."
 
And while Jobe gets comfortable on and off the field in his new home in Oxford, his thoughts are still never far from his birthplace and his family. Even though Jobe hasn't been back to Senegal since he first arrived in the United States seven years ago, he is able to talk to his father on the phone each weekend and appreciates knowing that his relatives and friends are willing to stay up until the wee hours of the morning (five time zones ahead in Africa) to watch the RedHawks. "They still watch the game, even though they've got to wake up the next day and go to work. That's love," Jobe said.
 
As a business major at Miami and one of the few people from Senegal who has ever gone on to play American football at a high level, Jobe hopes to use the education his mother so desperately wanted him to obtain to someday open his own business.
 
His new goal: train kids in his native land how to play the sport that he didn't discover himself until later in life.
 
"That way, if they have the opportunity to come down here, they won't be like me. I came and I never knew about football," Jobe said. "I thought it was rugby!...I feel like teaching them can help them a little bit.
 
"[There are] millions of people back home who are really looking up to me. I get different texts all the time from people back home talking about, 'Hey, we're proud of you for doing this.'
 
"Now, when you go home, there's a lot of people that kind of know about football because of me; I feel like that's a blessing."
 
When Jobe made his Miami Football debut on Aug. 29 at Wisconsin, anyone watching (whether as part of a national television audience in America that night or Jobe's Senegalese fan base 5,000 miles away in the wee hours of their morning) had the chance to notice a piece of his story, just by looking at his uniform and gear.

Because not only was Jobe wearing his special No. 22, but he also drew a heart symbol and wrote the words "RIP MaMa 12/22/18" on his right glove.
 
What better way to honor and pay tribute to the woman who was his 'right hand' for the first 14 years of his life?
 
"I always just wanted to make her proud," Jobe said.
 
And as the RedHawks prepare for their home opener Saturday against UNLV, Jobe can't wait to run out of the tunnel in Oxford for the first time wearing the jersey number that's so meaningful to him and his family.
 
"I'm excited to see what the stadium looks like on gameday," Jobe said. "Miami's a great place already, and I know it's going to be a great game for sure. I'm just excited."
 
Because when Bai Jobe takes that first step onto the Yager Stadium turf for his first home college football game as a RedHawk, it will represent yet another concrete step toward accomplishing the goals his mother always hoped and knew he could achieve.
 
Or, in the words of No. 22:
 
"Every time I step on the field, I feel like I'm doing it for her."
 
Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures
 
Miami Football hosts UNLV on Saturday, Sept. 20 at noon in the best Group of Five matchup in the country. The game will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU. Tickets to Miami's home opener are available now!