Michigan State Spartans target Darius Afalava, Houston friends Kaahaaina-Torres

The Michigan State Spartans and head coach Jonathan Smith have been recruiting hard on the West Coast in an effort to maintain Smith’s pipeline from his tenure at Oregon State.

Two notable 2025 recruits from the West were on my radar as a reporter: three-star interior offensive linemen Darius Afalava and Houston Kaahaaina-Torres. Both are talented linemen from Hawaii, although Afalava’s family moved from Hawaii to Utah during the pandemic so he could continue his football career at Skyridge High School.

While talking with Afalava, I learned that the two knew each other. They had their official visit on May 31 as offensive linemen. Their tour guides were freshman offensive linemen and brothers Charlton and Mercer Luniewski.

However, Afalava and Kaahaaina-Torres knew each other well before their visit.

“Me and Houston are good friends,” Afalava told me. “So I think when I figured it out, I saw a graphic of the people that were going to be there, and I saw Houston’s name come up. I called him and I said, ‘Yo, Are you going to be there?’ And he said yes.”

Contact was limited for a time during their freshman and sophomore years before entering their junior seasons.

“It was camp season, and I went to a lot of different camps that year, and I ran into him in Oregon. The Oregon camp. And I think after being went to Oregon, we kept ending up in different camps almost, unintentionally,’” Afalava said. “And we really stayed in touch after that. Last year we saw each other again at Rivals camp. Then after that we stayed in touch almost every week.”

Kaahaaina-Torres reaffirmed to me that the Rivals camp was a great time for them to reconnect on the recruiting trail. The recruiting process itself seems to have brought them closer, not only in terms of camps and visits, but also as a topic of discussion.

“We just talked about how recruiting is going, we kind of wondered about this college and what we see there,” Kaahaaina-Torres said. “So we got a little closer. Even on that trip to Michigan State, we hung out a lot, so it was really cool. I met his family, he met mine. So I can say we “I’m pretty close.”

Kaahaaina-Torres said their Hawaiian background gives them a certain “familiarity” with each other.

“Even though we talk to each other, even though we’re in Michigan, we kind of brought that feeling of being home,” Kaahaaina-Torres said.

Kaahaaina-Torres told me it would be “really fun” to play on an offensive line with Afalava at the next level.

“We are very close to each other, we really like to compete against each other,” Kaahaaina-Torres said. “I feel like if we ever worked together on the same (offensive line), we would be unstoppable.”

Michael France is Sports Illustrated’s Michigan State recruiting editor, covering all things Big Ten recruiting for Spartan Nation. Be sure to follow him on Twitter/X@michaelfrancesi for exclusive Spartans recruiting coverage.

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