USC Football: DT Marlon Tuipulotu Completes Early Enrollment

Four-star defensive tackle Marlon Tuipulotu completed his early enrollment on Monday, joining USC football for the spring semester.

USC football announced the fifth early enrollee for 2017 on Friday, officially welcoming four-star defensive tackle Marlon Tuipulotu to the Trojan family on Monday.

Earlier this year, USC announced the spring enrollment of four new freshman from the 2017 recruiting class, including quarterback Jack Sears, linebacker Tayler Katoa, offensive lineman Andrew Voorhees and longsnapper Damon Johnson.

Those four are now joined by Tuipulotu, who committed to the Trojans a week ago after a surprise flip away from Washington.

Tuipulotu had been committed to the Huskies for almost a year, and was expected to enroll early in Seattle in March, when he scheduled an official visit to USC just two weeks before Signing Day.

The significance of that visit couldn’t be overlooked as Washington head coach Chris Petersen has a policy against committed recruits taking visits to other schools. When Tuipulotu traveled from Independence, Oregon to Los Angeles, he violated that policy, signalling just how serious his interest in the Trojans was.

Then last Monday afternoon, he made it official, announcing on Twitter that he was de-committing from the Huskies and joining USC.

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The only question after that was whether or not Tuipulotu could beat the deadline to enroll at USC. He was set to take finals this week to graduate while Friday was the last day to add or drop classes for the Trojans.

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The fact that Tuipulotu was officially announced as the newest USC enrollee answers the question about getting the player graduated and ready to go in Los Angeles.

That’s a big deal for USC because it will allow Tuipulotu to participate in spring camp, which should put him on a trajectory to contribute right away fro the Trojans on the defensive line.

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Considering USC’s depth concerns up front with the graduation of starting nose guard Stevie Tu’ikolovatu and the transfer of defensive tackle Noah Jefferson and sometime defensive lineman Khaliel Rodgers, adding Tuipulotu to the line up right away will be critical.

Now that Tuipulotu is enrolled, he can begin the process of settling in and getting ready for the 2017 season.