Huskies Add Elite Four-Star DT Faatui Tuitele to 2019 Recruiting Class

Two weeks ago TheDawgReport.com named three 2019 recruits to watch as Washington closes out its recruiting class.

Late Sunday night, before his scheduled official visit to Seattle in December, four-star defensive tackle Faatui Tuitele, the No. 1 ranked prospect from Hawaii, became the first of the trio to check his name off the list.

UW now has 19 verbal commitments for the 2019 class, which ranks No. 19 in the country according to Rivals.com team rankings.

Tuitele, a 6-foot-4 and 287-pound tackle out of St. Louis High School (Honolulu, Hawaii), is the fifth defensive line commitment for the Huskies class. He’s also the fifth prospect from the state to pledge his name to the class with DL coach Ikaika Malloe continuing to emphasize recruiting the Islands.

Before Zion Tupuola-Fetui signed as part of the 2018 class no prospect from Hawaii had joined the program since Chris Petersen arrived at UW in December 2013. After the 2015 season Petersen hired Malloe to replace Jeff Choate, who left to become head coach at Montana State.

In doing so Petersen changed how the Huskies approached recruiting the DL, with Malloe being a former player at UW and having deep Polynesian ties being from Waimanalo, Hawaii.

The other four commits from the Islands for the 2019 class; four-star offensive tackle Julius Buelow (Kapolei, Hawaii), three-star DT Sama Paama (Honolulu, Hawaii/Kaimuki HS), two-star kicker Timothy Horn (Honolulu, Hawaii/Punahou HS), and three-star linebacker Miki Ah You (Kahuku, Hawaii).