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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Among Finalists For Safeties From Same NorCal Team

Jeovanni Henley and Malakai Taufoou play for Serra High and nearly have the same five options.
Dan Raley|
Junipero Serra’s Jeovanni Henley, right, and Dylan Modena bring down a St. Mary’s player in the playoffs.
Junipero Serra’s Jeovanni Henley, right, and Dylan Modena bring down a St. Mary’s player in the playoffs. | CLIFFORD OTO/THE STOCKTON RECORD / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Jeovanni Henley is a Northern California safety who this past week narrowed his college choices to BYU, California, Penn State, Texas and Washington.

He plays for Junipero Serra High School, which coincidentally has another safety in Malakai Taufoou, who will pick from among BYU, Cal, Oregon, Penn State and UW, in his case swapping out Texas for the Ducks.

Both of these guys will visit Montlake together on June 19, which begs the following questions:

Will the Huskies get both of them, one of them or none of them?

The big difference between these two Serra defensive backs is the 6-foot, 165-pound Henley missed most of his sophomore season in 2024 with a broken ankle and overcame that setback to become a 3-star and desired recruit.

He fractured his ankle in a 56-16 loss to St. John Bosco in the third game of the 2024 season.

Rejoining the 4-star and 6-foot-2, 200-pound Taufoou in the Serra secondary, Henley actually had a better season than the other guy this past fall in some respects.

For an 8-6 Padres team located in San Mateo, California, he finished with 65 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, 5 sacks, 2 interceptions and 2 defensive returns, one on an interception runback and another on a fumble scoop and score.

Henley scored on a 35-yard interception return off BYU-bound quarterback Ryder Lions in a 56-42 loss to Folsom High.

Against Archbiship Mitty, he picked up that fumble and ran 16 yards with it to score in a 28-13 victory.

Jeovanni Henley of Serra, a Husky recruit, chases after St. Mary’s Kenneth Moore III.
Jeovanni Henley of Serra, a Husky recruit, chases after St. Mary’s Kenneth Moore III. | CLIFFORD OTO/THE STOCKTON RECORD / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

By contrast, Taufoou finished with 46 tackles, 6 TFLs and 4 interceptions, and didn't score defensively.

Both Henley and Taufoou played offense, too, often rushing the football. Henley finished with 407 yards and 6 touchdowns while Taufoou supplied 154 yards and 7 scores.

Similarly, these Junipero Serra safeties will wander through the UW together in a month and see where they end up. The Huskies, at the moment, will get the last opportunity during recruiting high season to land them.

Again, they will have the opportunity to play together at any one of four schools that are among their finalists, including the UW.

The Huskies currently have 13 oral commitments for the Class of 2027, seven of whom are defensive players, and one is a cornerback but there are no safeties.

Here's a pair from Northern California waiting to be had.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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