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BYU defensive lineman Viliami Po'uha has been a key contributor along BYU's defensive front this season

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU defensive line Coach Sione Po'uha celebrates following the Cougar's win over Portland State

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU defensive lineman Viliami Po'uha recovers a fumble in his team's win over Stanford

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU defensive line Coach Sione Po'uha has been focused on being Viliami's father rather than his coach throughout his son's career

Courtesy BYU Photo

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The dynamic is still a bit unusual and surreal to both parties involved, but overall has been richly rewarding and productive.

Viliami Po’uha is in his second season playing defensive line for the Cougars, a prospect he took on upon completion of his two-year mission for the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Alabama. One of his coaches he’s been instructed by since arriving in Provo so happens to be his father, Sione Po’uha, creating a unique situation that Viliami is thriving with as one of the Cougar’s key contributors along the defensive front this season.

Through five games played, Viliami Po’uha has been employed at both the edge and interior defensive line positions, and has responded with nine total tackles and a key fumble recovery during the Cougar’s 27-3 win over Stanford. Sione Po’uha, meanwhile, has observed all of it with his ubiquitous smile across his face while doing his best to find the unique balance between coach and father, although he leans heavily toward the latter.

“I do my best in this situation to play dad,” Sione Po’uha said. “He’s going to have 20 to 30 coaches in his lifetime, but he’s going to have just one dad. So I try and play the role I’ve been assigned. Every once in a while he’ll ask me about Xs and Os and I’ll share that with him, but it’s mostly about being a dad…It’s super unique and super awesome.”

Viliami Po’uha offers largely the same perspective.

“He made it clear early on that he was going to be a father first and a coach second,” Viliami Po’uha said. “He’s always told me that I was going to have to come to him for whatever football knowledge I wanted rather than the other way around, and it’s been that way here at BYU. It’s been so great having him here, along with great coaches like Kelly Poppinga and Gary Andersen, and then great players like Tyler Batty and Logan Lutui when I got here. I’ve been blessed.”

Relatively late to the gridiron

As some may know, Sione Po’uha stands as one of the premier defensive line talents to ever come out of the state of Utah. For four years he wreaked havoc along the University of Utah’s defensive front before moving on to do much the same over his eight year career playing for the New York Jets.

Subsequently it may be easy to assume that Viliami might be pushed from an early age to begin the work of emulating his father’s football accomplishments, but that was hardly the case.

“My dad didn’t want to do it just because he was doing it,” Viliami Po’uha explained. “He wanted us to pursue our own choice to play football, so I didn’t really even start playing until my sophomore year of high school. He’d always tell me that if I was going to do football that I needed to do it at 100 percent, so when I was a sophomore I finally made the decision to do it because that’s what I wanted…My father doesn’t take football lightly.”

Sione Po’uha was coaching at the Naval Academy during Viliami’s sophomore year that was met with some immediate success on the gridiron.

“I was a lot bigger than a lot of the guys back there in Maryland,” he said. “So a lot of it was just being bigger and stronger without a lot of the skill and technique I’ve worked hard to add to my game since.”

The Po’uha family moved back to Utah following Viliami’s sophomore season after his father accepted a position to coach defensive line for the Utes. Starring for Bingham, Viliami rose to be recognized as one of the top defensive line recruits in the state and opted to sign with Utah out of high school where he’d be coached by his father.

Path to Provo

Viliami Po’uha embarked on his aforementioned mission service immediately after graduating from high school. During his two years away, Sione Po’uha accepted his current post to coach defensive line at BYU, with Viliami opting to join him in Provo when he returned back home just prior to the 2024 season rather than playing for Utah.

“I told him when he got home to play where he signed and find success at Utah because I wanted him to write his own story,” Sione Po’uha said. “But he decided that he wanted to write that story at BYU. It was his decision, just like it was completely his decision to play football, and that’s what’s important. He’s a great kid who applies himself totally to whatever he does. He gets that from his mom (Keiti Po’uha), not the dad, believe me. So she’s played a huge role in all of his success, much more than I have.”

Like a lot of returned missionaries, it took time for Viliami to get to the point where he could contribute productive play on the field. Nonetheless, Viliami did see action in all 13 games played during the 2024 season, accumulating nine total tackles while being played primarily as a backup defensive end.

“I wasn’t big and as strong as I needed to be when I got home, so it took some time,” he said. “I’ve been able to put on 15-20 pounds for this season and it’s really benefitted me in playing at both defensive end and at tackle.”

But according to both father and son, the biggest blessings he’s acquired since being at BYU have come away from the football field, namely becoming engaged to marry BYU volleyball player Lulu Uluave this coming April.

“He’s been able to find his better half, and we couldn’t be more excited to have Lulu become a part of our family. She’s his rock and his inspiration,” Sione Po’uha said. “For me, his development as a human being has always been the most important thing. He’s been blessed to grow up around great people at the University of Utah like Coach (Kyle) Whittingham, Coach (Gary) Andersen, Coach (Lewis) Powell and Coach (Morgan) Scalley, and that’s been able to continue here at BYU with all the great coaches here.”

“Coming to BYU is probably the best decision I’ve ever made,” Viliami Po’uha concluded. “I love the culture here. I love (BYU Coach) Kalani (Sitake) and all the other coaches and players. It all really is family and that’s how I feel about everyone. And then finding my wife is something I couldn’t be happier about all of it.”