Back in April, Junior Tanuvasa joined Karl Dorrell's staff at Colorado as a quality control coach for recruiting. He previously coached the linebackers at Northern Arizona in 2019 and for nearly a decade, from 2009-2017, coached Mount San Antonio College in California.

This evening, Colorado received a commitment from 2021 linebacker TJ Patu out of La Habra, California. Patu is verbal pledge No. 17 in Colorado's '21 class and it was Tanuvasa who issued an offer to him back in mid-June, thus formally kickstarting his recruitment by the Buffaloes.

While Tanuvasa was certainly not the only CU coach to contribute and influence Patu's decision to choose Colorado, he was the original man on the ground with him and played a significant role with Patu during the early stages of his recruitment.

Earlier in the summer, Tanuvasa was similarly a major player in the Buffs landing three-star Las Vegas ILB Zephaniah Maea.

Tanuvasa was significant in the Buffs offering Maea on May 26. Two days later, Maea named Colorado in a Top 3 list and finally, on June 1, he pulled the trigger and committed to CU less than a full week after being offered.

The way Maea put it when breaking down his commitment, Tanuvasa was instrumental — in an impressively short amount of time — in creating the necessary traction with the 6-foot-1, 230-pound prospect that culminated in him becoming CU's third Class of 2021 pledge.

Tanuvasa has also been a major player in the Buffs' recruitment of a number of other 2021 players including QB Cameron Friel and LB Patrick Hisatake.

Before the Buffs got their 2021 quarterback in Drew Carter, who committed in early August, Tanuvasa was one of the first CU coaches to make contact with Friel, who was and still currently is committed to UNLV.

Histake wound up committing to California in August, but Tanuvasa once more was a prominent presence for the Buffs during his recruitment.

To date, Tanuvasa has helped score two commitments for the Buffs in Dorrell's opening year at the helm in Boulder and as time goes on he continues to prove himself as a valuable asset capable of getting recruits interested in Colorado.

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