Giants' Sisi Mauigoa, Jets' Kiko Mauigoa Could Face Off for First Time Friday
Sisi and Kiko Mauigoa were college teammates at Miami for two seasons before Kiko turned pro. Friday's preseason finale could make them opponents for the first time in their lives.
New York Giants rookie guard Francis Mauigoa and New York Jets linebacker Francisco Mauigoa — brothers — could face each other in a football game for the first time in their lives Friday, when the two teams close the preseason at MetLife Stadium. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. ET, with the game airing on NBC 4 New York and streaming on Giants.com and the Giants app for fans in the local market.
Mauigoa, who goes by Sisi, is the Giants' starting rookie guard. His older brother, Kiko, is in his second season as a Jets linebacker. Both were born in American Samoa and both attended Aquinas High School in San Bernardino, California, before Sisi finished his prep career at IMG Academy in Florida. They were college teammates at Miami in 2023 and 2024, but Kiko left for the NFL after that season while Sisi played on for the Hurricanes through 2025. Despite all of that shared history, they've never lined up as opponents in a game.
Whether they actually do Friday isn't guaranteed. Sisi has been pulled early from each of his first two preseason appearances this summer as the Giants manage his snap count. Kiko is a backup behind starting inside linebacker Demario Davis, who is 37 and entering his 15th NFL season, though Kiko has taken significant first-team reps in camp. Sisi's shift from tackle to guard means he now lines up closer to the middle of the field — exactly where Kiko plays — raising the odds of an actual collision if both get on the field together.
Sisi is also working back from a stinger he suffered Aug. 20 during a joint practice with the Miami Dolphins. He sat out the Giants' 26-3 preseason win over Miami on Aug. 22. Giants head coach John Harbaugh said Sunday that Sisi is expected back at practice this week; the team has not specified his status for Friday's game.
Both brothers said this week they don't plan to ease up on each other. "Either the older brother is going to tell me he is still the older brother or I'm going to tell him that I'm no longer the younger brother," Sisi told Newsday's Tom Rock. "It's one of those moments."
Asked if he'd take it easy on Kiko, Sisi said no. "Oh, hell no! It'll be a little more! Obviously I always give 100%, but when I see him, it's going to be 110%," he said.
Kiko said much the same. "He's a good player, but I am going to give him everything I got. If I get an opportunity to put hands on him, I'm going to put some hands on him," he told Rock. "And then after the game we'll be back to being brothers. That's how we're going to go at it. We're just going to be us and do what we did when we were little."
The brothers arrived in the NFL on very different timelines. The Giants took Sisi 10th overall in the first round of the 2026 draft, using a pick they acquired from the Cincinnati Bengals in the Dexter Lawrence trade. He started 42 consecutive games at right tackle at Miami before the Giants moved him inside to guard. Kiko went to the Jets in the fifth round, 162nd overall, in 2025. He played 12 games with eight starts as a rookie, recording 45 tackles before an injury in a Week 14 loss to Miami ended his season; the Jets placed him on injured reserve Dec. 26.
Their path to Miami together traces back to a family meeting in Hawaii in December 2022, the day before national signing day, when the Mauigoa family — parents Fa'alialia and Telesia Mauigoa, three older brothers, a sister and Sisi — went around the table and each said where they thought Sisi should play college football, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Kiko, then at Washington State, said he'd transfer wherever Sisi landed. Sisi chose Miami. The family relocated from American Samoa to the Coral Gables area so the parents could be near both sons. That relocation asked something of the parents, too. Fa'alialia — better known as Lia — hasn't had the same access to the golf circuit he once shared with friends back in Samoa, and Telesia set aside her career as an assistant high school principal to make the move work.
Sisi told the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Dave Hyde in 2023 that the gear available to him growing up in American Samoa was a step down from what's standard in the U.S. — shoulder pads and helmets that had seen better days, and, in his case, cut-up slippers pressed into service as knee and thigh padding. "The equipment over there is illegal over here," he said.
Their parents plan to attend Friday's game. Kiko told Rock he's told them they now have one home stadium between the two teams. "Whoever is at home, they can come watch that game every Sunday, so they don't have to go anywhere else," he said.
The Giants and Jets don't play again this season.