Player Dossier

2019-2021

UNLV

Malakai Salu

LB • 6'0" • 230 lbs • Portland, OR, USA

Ball-hunting defenderSplash play profile

Malakai Salu shows a ball-hunting defender profile with 4.2 disruption score.

Usage / Role

1%

Rotational defensive role

lowfeatured

Impact Production

7

Developing production for a linebacker

lowelite

Reliability

15

Sporadic game-to-game production

lowhigh

Star Power

17

Limited ceiling signals so far

limitedstar

Career Arc

Value trend by season

Best season by Season Value: 2020 Regular Season · UNLV

192021

Snapshot

Career Teams
1
Unique Seasons
3
Program Path
UNLV
Peak Game
Peak game by takeover score: Southern Utah

Player Story

Malakai Salu built his college career from 2019 through 2021 as a linebacker from Portland, OR wearing No. 43, spending time with UNLV. The clearest part of Malakai Salu's career was his defensive production: 39...

Read the story
3★

Recruit Profile

Class 2018 · Rating 0.8098

Central Catholic · Portland, OR

Committed To
UNLV
Commit Date
Jan 1, 2018

Malakai Salu, LB. Best season Best season by Season Value: 2020 Regular Season · UNLV. Malakai Salu shows a ball-hunting defender profile with 4.2 disruption score.

Stat Footprint

Career production snapshot

Tackles
39
TFL
1

Quick Answers

Malakai Salu quick answers

Latest team and position
UNLV · LB
Career Tackles
39
Tracked sample
3 unique seasons · 3 entries · 10 games
Best season
2020 Regular Season · UNLV
Top game
Southern Utah
Recruit profile
3-star · Central Catholic · UNLV
High school pipeline
Central Catholic · 20 FBS recruits · 0 drafted players
Latest roster
No. 43 · Sophomore
2021 Tackles rank
1 tackles · LB 1,214th (top 97%) · Mountain West 495th (top 92%) · National 5,559th (top 93%)

Season Ledger

Crawlable season-by-season stats

SeasonTeamGamesTacklesTFLSacksQB HurPDTDOverall
2019 Regular SeasonUNLV31010--040.1
2020 Regular SeasonUNLV628-0--049.1
2021 Regular SeasonUNLV11-0--036.7

Related Context

Transfer Portal History

Matched portal movement

SeasonPathMovementValueDate
2022UNLV to UnlistedG5/FCS to Unlisted69.1Dec 3, 2021

Malakai Salu played LB for UNLV. Across 3 tracked seasons, Malakai Salu recorded 39 tackles. His top tracked season came in 2020 with UNLV.

Player insights

Lead takeaway

Best season by value score: 2020 Regular Season

UNLV paired 0 primary output with 19.5 efficiency.

Supporting note

2021 Regular Season role shape

impact-led usage with 4.2 efficiency.

Supporting note

Career value cooled off

2021 Regular Season fell back from the prior stop by season value score.

Supporting note

Peak game by takeover score: UTSA

Loss with 0 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet. It landed in the 100th percentile of the selected season.

Analysis workspace

Season Workbench

Filter the strongest season sample, inspect game-level shape, and then drop into the full log without losing the story of the year.

Season Explorer

Understand the selected season before dropping into the full game log.

2021 Regular Season · UNLV

Games

1

Havoc Plays / G

0

Efficiency

4.2

Usage

0.7

Consistency

100

Best Game by takeover score

UTSA

Not enough games exist for the full explorer. The summary cards stay available so the season still reads clearly.

Active game

Hover over a point

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Game-by-Game Trend

Follow how the selected stat changes from one game to the next. Spikes mark standout outings, while dips show quieter weeks.

Not enough games are available for a full trend line yet.

Volume vs Efficiency

Each dot is a game. Farther right means the player carried more of the workload, and higher means they were more efficient with those chances.

Scatter view is hidden because this season does not have enough game-to-game variety yet.

Split Comparison

Compare how this player performed across different situations. "Games" shows how many matchups are included in each split.

All Games0 · Games = 1

Game Log

Dense stat lines with inline explanations and season-linked highlights.

1 games

Featured metric

Havoc Plays

Top game by takeover score

UTSA

Best efficiency game

4.2 vs UTSA

Result
Sat 10/2@ UTSAL 17-2411000

Player Story

Malakai Salu story

Malakai Salu built his college career from 2019 through 2021 as a linebacker from Portland, OR wearing No. 43, spending time with UNLV. The clearest part of Malakai Salu's career was his defensive production: 39 tackles and 1 tackle for loss across 10 career games in the available record. That gives Malakai Salu's career enough real context without stretching the story beyond the available production.

Career Arc

Track team changes, role shifts, and season-to-season movement.

  1. 1

    UNLV

    2019-2021

    Opening stop

Season Value Progression

201920202021
SeasonTeamPrimaryEfficiencyUsageDelta
2019 Regular SeasonUNLV117.23.9
2020 Regular SeasonUNLV019.53.3-1
2021 Regular SeasonUNLV04.20.70

Signature Performances

Top Games

#1 Featured game

vs Southern Utah

Week 1 · W 56-23

Win with 1 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet.

1

Havoc Plays

56.7 takeover

1 disruption/tackle impact with 56.7 takeover score.

#2

vs Wyoming

Week 13 · L 14-45 · Conference game

0

Havoc Plays

26.7 takeover

Loss with 0 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet.

0 disruption/tackle impact with 26.7 takeover score.

#3

@ San José State

Week 11 · L 17-34 · Conference game

0

Havoc Plays

16.1 takeover

Loss with 0 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet.

0 disruption/tackle impact with 16.1 takeover score.

#4

@ Fresno State

Week 8 · L 27-56 · Conference game

0

Havoc Plays

15.6 takeover

Loss with 0 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet.

0 disruption/tackle impact with 15.6 takeover score.

#5

vs Nevada

Week 9 · L 19-37 · Conference game

0

Havoc Plays

15 takeover

Loss with 0 impact plays across the defensive snap sheet.

0 disruption/tackle impact with 15 takeover score.

Top Seasons

#1 Season by Season Value

2020 Regular Season · UNLV

0 primary output · 19.5 efficiency · 3.3 usage

49.1

#2

2019 Regular Season · UNLV

40.1

1 primary · 17.2 efficiency · 3.9 usage

#3

2021 Regular Season · UNLV

36.7

0 primary · 4.2 efficiency · 0.7 usage

Milestones

0

Impact games

0

Splash games

0

10+ tackle games