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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Trying to Land Safety from Tom Brady's High School

Malakai Taufoou has the UW among five finalists he just identified over the weekend.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch and Malakai Taufoou share a recruiting moment.
Jedd Fisch and Malakai Taufoou share a recruiting moment. | UW

Malakai Taufoou lives in Redwood City, California, which is a just short drive to San Francisco International Airport, which then provides a short flight to Seattle.

By now, this 4-star safety from Juipero Serra High School -- which once relied on a quarterback named Tom Brady to run the huddle -- certainly knows the way to the University of Washington football program.

In late October, Taufoou showed up to watch the Huskies host and beat Illinois 42-25.

In early March, he arrived and took part in Husky Junior Day activities.

And, on June 19-21, the touted 6-foot-2, 195-pound defensive back will take part in his official visit through Montlake.

Maybe Taufoou will be conducting program tours at that point. He knows how the place rolls.

Over the weekend, he informed Rivals he has pared his 22 scholarship offers to five: BYU, California, Oregon, Penn State and the UW.

With former NFL and USC All-American safety Taylor Mays delivering their sales pitch, the Huskies seemingly are always in a good position to land another player in that centerfielder role, no matter who he is.

Mays remains the gold standard for what a college safety should look like for his time spent with the Trojans, three times earning first-team All-America honors. After becoming a full-time coach at the UW, he offers a fairly calm yet direct teaching style that makes his guys listen.

Husky coach Jedd Fisch has come out and said May's players want to be him.

Now comes Taufoou.

Clearly Oregon and Penn State are formidable players in his recruitment. Then there's California, headed up by defensive-minded new head coach Tosh Lopoi, who no doubt feels a lot of pressure to keep the touted Bay Area player home.

Whomever gets Taufoou will land a player who finished last season with 50 tackles, 45 of which were solo. He also had 6 tackles for loss, 4 interceptions and 3 pass break-ups for an 8-6 Junipero Serra team.

Used in many ways, he ran for 7 touchdowns and threw for another.

In late November, Taufoou intercepted 2 passes and scored 2 touchdowns to lead the Padres to a 28-21 comeback victory over Los Gatos that secured a Central Coast Section Division I championship.

Tied at 21, Taufoou provided a game-deciding touchdown run from 5 yards out with two minutes left to play and then sealed the outcome with an interception.

Tom Brady couldn't have closed it out any better himself.

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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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