{"id":503226,"date":"2026-01-09T07:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503226\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T07:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:30:09","slug":"penn-state-adds-former-ucla-defensive-tackle-siale-taupaki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503226\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State adds former UCLA defensive tackle Siale Taupaki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn State has added former UCLA Bruin Siale Taupaki<\/a><\/strong> to its 2026 roster.<\/p>\n

Listed at 6-foot-4, 310 pounds, Taupaki has already spent seven seasons playing college football. From 2019 to 2021, he used a regular redshirt season and a medical redshirt. Of course, 2020 wasn\u2019t held against any player due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Taupaki then played in the first two games of the 2022 season before missing the remainder of the season. It\u2019s believed that he was given another waiver for that season, which is how he\u2019s now earned one final season of college football.<\/p>\n

Up until 2024, Taupaki was actually an offensive lineman for the Bruins, playing left guard. He totaled 115 snaps in a reserve role when he returned from injury. That was also the final season under former head coach Chip Kelly<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

More: Former Boston College safety Omarion Davis commits to Penn State<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

When DeShaun Foster<\/a><\/strong> took over in 2024, that\u2019s when Taupaki moved to the defensive side of the ball, totaling 272 snaps in all 12 games for the Bruins that season. He totaled 23 tackles, 1 tackle for loss and a sack that season. <\/p>\n

BWITop 10Top 10<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 1<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. 2Siale Taupaki\n

    PSU adds another UCLA DT<\/p>\n

    Breaking<\/a><\/li>\n

  3. 3Savon Huggins\n

    New RB coach<\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/li>\n

  4. 4<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. 5Meet the staff\n

    Campbell’s coaches<\/p>\n

    New<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    View All<\/a>Get the Daily On3 Newsletter in your inbox every morning<\/p>\n

    By clicking “Subscribe to Newsletter”, I agree to On3’s Privacy Notice<\/a>, Terms<\/a>, and use of my personal information described therein.<\/p>\n

    Taupaki played in all 12 games again this past season, getting his first start against Indiana in early October. He totaled 15 tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack and one fumble recovery. <\/p>\n

    He\u2019s now the second former UCLA defenisve tackle to join the Nittany Lions following Matt Campbell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> decision to hire Ikaika Malloe<\/a><\/strong> as his defensive line coach. On Jan. 4, Penn State hosted senior Keanu Williams<\/a><\/strong>, who spent time at Oregon before transferring to UCLA to play under Malloe. He then committed the following day, citing Malloe as a major reason why. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn State has added former UCLA Bruin Siale Taupaki to its 2026 roster. Listed at 6-foot-4, 310 pounds,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":503227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,225632,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-503226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-siale-taupaki-19-oakland","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115863973282388214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}