Siale Taupaki is 25 years old, lining up at defensive tackle for Penn State, and playing his eighth season of college football — a number that sounds almost unbelievable until you learn why he is still out there. Taupaki says he is doing it for his family, plainly telling reporters this week that he is broke and trying to fill the holes back home.
According to the New York Post, Taupaki told reporters on Tuesday that his parents are still struggling, even as he suits up in a Big Ten program. His parents emigrated to the United States from Tonga, and the family's hardship in California predates his football career by years. Taupaki said he is trying to take full advantage of the platform because, in his words, he comes from nothing.
That history includes a stretch of real instability. The family was evicted from its home when Taupaki was in seventh grade, according to the same report, and they left a relative's home because of overcrowding before spending time moving between hotels and, at one point, secretly living in a church. Taupaki says he spent four years unhoused in Oakland, a period that shaped how he talks about his current opportunity, calling his eighth college football season a big opportunity to help his family.
Severe Crowding Behind the Displacement
The kind of overcrowding the Taupaki family experienced is not an isolated pattern. State public health research compiled by the California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal links residential crowding to vulnerability to homelessness and notes that doubling up is the most commonly reported prior living situation before homelessness. It's the kind of institutional backdrop that turns a personal story into a familiar one for many families across the state.
Taupaki was a defensive tackle from Oakland who committed to UCLA in 2019, according to 247Sports. He redshirted as a true freshman and went on to spend seven years with the UCLA football program, appearing in 40 games while shifting between offensive and defensive line duty. Per UCLA's own athletics roster, he appeared for the Bruins on defense and the offensive line.
Injuries and Waivers Stretched His Timeline
Part of what made Taupaki's college career run so long was medical hardship layered on top of eligibility rules. He received an extra year of eligibility because of COVID, and he dealt with injuries, including two right-foot fractures, that sidelined him for nearly two seasons. Combined with his 2019 redshirt year and the COVID waiver, those setbacks are what stretched a four-year college career into eight.
Taupaki transferred to Penn State and reunited there with defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn and defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe, both of whom previously coached him at UCLA, according to Sports Illustrated. Penn State brought in 40 transfer student-athletes as part of a broader roster overhaul, Nittany Sports Now reported.
National Recognition and a Season-Opening Start
In August, the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame named Taupaki to its watch list for the 2026 Polynesian College Football Player of the Year Award, an honor recognizing college players of Polynesian descent who embody excellence and cultural values, per Penn State Athletics. He started at defensive tackle in Penn State's season opener against Marshall on September 5, helping force a tackle for loss and recording an assisted tackle in the win.
The End of the Eight-Year Journey
Taupaki's long road through college football is now a relic of a system that is changing. In June, the NCAA Division I Cabinet unanimously approved a new age-based “5-for-5” eligibility model that generally gives athletes up to five years but includes transition rules affecting athletes already competing, according to NCAA.org.
That overhaul has already triggered legal pushback. Student-athletes connected to Kansas and TCU have pursued lawsuits challenging NCAA eligibility rules, according to FOX Sports. Hoodline has covered several of those fights, including a Kansas guard's last-chance eligibility fight and a TCU lineman's push to save his final season.
For Taupaki, none of that litigation applies — his eighth year is already underway in Happy Valley, and he has been direct about why it matters. He has three siblings in addition to himself, and by his own account, the family that once moved between hotels and slept in a church is still working through hard times. He said he tries to take full advantage of the platform in front of him because he comes from nothing, and for now, that platform is a starting spot on Penn State's defensive line.
