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Even without Joe Salave’a, WSU will continue to recruit Hawaii, American Samoa

Washington State defensive line coach Joe Salave’a, a 9-year veteran of the NFL, has opened a recruiting pipeline to Pacific Islanders. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
The Cougars benefitted from Joe Salave'a's Samoan ties, but even though he's now at Oregon, they will continue to recruit the islands

Even though former Washington State defensive line coach Joe Salave’a is now on the Oregon staff, the Cougars will not stop recruiting the islands. Salave’a, a native Samoan, is credited with opening a pipeline for WSU between American Samoa and Pullman, and he routinely made about three recruiting trips a year to Samoa.

“We’re gonna continue to recruit Hawaii and American Samoa,” WSU Football Chief of Staff Dave Emerick said this week. “It’s about relationships and people being comfortable with you and your school. Obviously Joe was a big name and he had contacts there, but at the same time, we still have a bunch of kids on our team that those kids (in Samoa) know.”

Scout.com National Recruiting Analyst Brandon Huffman thinks the Cougars will continue to have success recruiting the islands even though they no longer have any full-time assistant coaches who have ties to Samoa.

“WSU had success there even before Joe Salave’a. The job gets tougher for them because they don’t have any true Hawaiian or Samoan ties for the coaches, and granted there was some stuff going on this fall that may hurt,” Huffman said, referring to the controversy that broke out in September over perceived incidents of racial profiling against Samoan football players. “But they have players on the team from those places that kids will reach out to. The bridge has been built. They just have to keep driving over it.”

Salave’a was instrumental in the recruitment of numerous Samoan players during his five seasons at WSU. Samoa natives Destiny Vaeao, who’s now with the Philadelphia Eagles, and Robert Barber, who started at nose tackle last season, were the first two recruits who signed with WSU when Salave’a joined the staff in December 2011.

Read more at Seattle Times