Huskies Add Local Defensive End to 2021 Recruiting Class
When Siaosi Finau moved to Washington state from Hawaii with his family a decade ago he never could have imagined it would lead to so many possibilities.
Prior to his freshman year at Renton High School Finau had never played football. Now, roughly three months before the start of his senior year the under the radar defensive end is committed to playing for Jimmy Lake at the University of Washington.
The Huskies first-year head coach, along with defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe, called Finau Monday to extend a scholarship offer and took him through a virtual tour of the campus. It didn’t take long for him to put his trust in the UW coaches, since they had done the same by being the first school to offer.
“What was going through my mind on the call was like, this is really unbelievable. Coming from a school (Renton HS) where football is not very big,” Finau told TheDawgReport.com.
“I use to live in Maui. Now we’ve been moved here and Washington has been nothing but a blessing to my family. I decided to – in a way I decided to repay them by joining the best school in Washington and repping my family’s blessings, and just repping the University of Washington.”
Finau, listed at 6-foot-4 and 270-pounds, is the fourth defensive line commitment for the Huskies in this years’ class. He’s the second true defensive end pledge along with three-star East High School (Salt Lake City, Utah) Voi Tunuufi.
One key element that sealed his decision was how Malloe approaches coaching his linemen.
“I can obviously tell that coach Malloe’s way of coaching is different,” Finau said. “It feels like more family than it is coaching and I know that I can trust him. He’s giving me this unbelievable opportunity so I’d like to thank him a lot.”
With the addition of Finau to the 2021 class UW has moved up to No. 30 in the Rivals’ team recruiting rankings.
The Huskies have more verbal commitments – as of June 29 – than they have had in any of their previous recruiting classes on the same date with 11.