Tomu Topui Jr. is High School Football’s Monster🔥 🔥 🔥  Exclusive Interview

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Santa Ana, California, is nearly 20 miles inland from the coast, and thousands of miles away from Polynesia. But under the entrancing beat of traditional drums, Friday night felt like being transported to a Pacific oasis crafted by warriors. The Mater Dei Monarchs hosted the Kahuku Red Raiders on Sept. 5 in a national high school football showdown between two great programs. Both schools have a long history of sending Polynesian prospects to the NFL, and Tomuhini Topui Jr. could be the next in line. 

At 6’4” 320 lbs, Tomuhini, known as “Tomu”, or “Tom-Tom” is one of the biggest defensive linemen in the state of California. By comparison, former All-Pro NFL defensive lineman Aaron Donald is four inches shorter and over 20lbs lighter than the four-star prospect. The 18-year-old high school senior is already dwarfing men twice his age. Wearing number 52, Topui Jr. is one of Mater Dei’s three captains. On a warm night at Santa Ana Stadium, he helped his troops prepare for battle. 

Mater Dei doesn’t have a usual pregame warmup for high school football. Yes, the arena speakers do fill the air with trendy top-40 hits and hyped up hip-hop music. But Santa Ana’s Tupua Productions provides another element of warrior spirit to the field. A team of nearly a dozen musicians pierces the night sky by playing traditional Polynesian drums and blowing conch shells. It provides an extra element of support for the players ready to go to war. The Kahuku Red Raiders were ready too, traveling thousands of miles from Hawaii for the contest.

Mater Dei is the number one team in the nation, but the underdog Red Raiders put up a tough fight. Mater Dei won 21-18, improving to 2-0 on the season. After the game, Kahuku’s players performed a traditional “Haka” in front of the hundreds of away fans who traveled a long way to see them play. 

Topui is introduced to players, coaches, and fans on the Kahuku side, some of whom he has familial ties to. He’s in good spirits after a win, but knows the team needs to improve if they want to win back-to-back state championships. 

“We’ve had ups and downs here on the offensive side,” Topui Jr. told Prep Network postgame. “But it’s just little things we can fix. Defense. You know, great job just coming out here and shutting them out, getting a bunch of three-and-outs, putting our offense back on the field. But like I said earlier, there’s a bunch of little stuff we can fix.” 

With a friendly demeanor and playful smile, it’s hard to imagine Tomu striking fear into the hearts of opponents on the football field. He laughs, trying to pay attention to our interview as his teammates mess with him behind the camera. I ask him how it feels to be able to strike fear into his opponents at his size. 

“Really, just taking it as a blessing, you know?” Topui said. “It’s always a privilege and a blessing to go against players like these that are just hungry for it. So I’ve got to show why I’m hungry for it as well, you know? It’s always been a blessing.” 

Earlier this year, Prep Redzone scout Michael Huntley called Topui Jr. the “best defensive lineman in California”. After initially committing to Oregon, the senior is now staying in Southern California to play for the USC Trojans next year. A native of Inglewood, California, the blue-blood college is a stone’s throw away from where he grew up.

“Growing up, you know, being [an] inner city kid, you know, [USC] has always been my dream school, that’s always been down the street from me.” He continued. “Now that I had the opportunity to actually go there, you know, why not? You know, at first I was committed to Oregon, and then, you know, just seeing the bigger picture of what [Head Coach Lincoln Riley], and [General Manager] Chad Bowden were preaching. I finally started to see it as soon as we got all the commits coming in. Just seeing how they played last week, you know, is big. So I can actually see the program and the vision they have for it.”

It’s a similar vision he felt making the transition from Inglewood to Mater Dei as a freshman in high school. “[Mater Dei] took me in with open arms. You know, they really just showed real love, you know? I felt at home as soon as I checked in my freshman year.” He added that he’s “really proud” to not just represent Inglewood, but also the city of Santa Ana.

Before he heads off to USC, Tomu is still focused on taking his final high school season one day at a time. Mater Dei is the number one team in the nation, but the senior captain isn’t getting on his high horse. “Regardless of what the stats say and stuff, we’re really just trying to go ‘1-0’, he finished. 

“Every week we’ve just got to get to ‘1-0’ and that’s the biggest deal for us. As you see, it was a bunch of small mistakes, like I said earlier, you know we just got to fix those. If we all just play our assignments and you know, just play everything the right way, we’ll always go ‘1-0’, and that’s the main goal.”