Cade Uluave

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Mama Said Knock You Out

BYU linebacker Cade Uluave is as subtle as a boxer's right cross to the face. He only knows how to play football one way: with extreme violence. If football didn't exist, I'd recommend that he consider a career as a Marine or an MMA fighter.

Uluave was generally considered to be a late-round prospect but after terrorizing CJ Carr and Notre Dame in BYU's upset win, he is gaining more attention. Up to this point, Ian Cummings was his biggest proponent, listing Uluave with a 3rd round draft projection, calling him a middle-round sleeper with early round potential. On multiple boards, Uluave is a 7th round prospect, right on the edge of even being drafted.

One reason Uluave isn't a highly regarded draft prospect is he's "too small" for the NFL. Sammy Brown is considered to be a 1st to 2nd round prospect. He's about one inch taller than Uluave. That one inch is arguably the only reason we aren't talking about Uluave being a potential 1st round pick and a better NFL prospect than Brown.

Uluave has almost exactly the same height, weight and projected speed as a famous former NFL linebacker. The team that drafted him wasn't that high on him, but the other LBs they had graded ahead of him had already been taken, so they ended up with him as their fallback option as the last one on that tier left on their board. It became one of the best draft picks in the history of that franchise. Uluave is about the same size as Ray Lewis.

 

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Part 1: Background

Name, Age, School: Cade Uluave. Last name pronounced "ooo-loo-AH-vay". Turns 22 in May of 2027. 4th year senior. Cal 2023 to 2025, BYU 2026. Studied psychology at Cal.

Size, estimated speed: Listed 6'1'' tall and 230 pounds. Brian Bosarge 4.58 seconds estimated 40 time. Draftscout 6'1 1/8'' tall and 230 pounds with 4.56 seconds estimated 40 time. Reportedly ran 4.51 seconds in 40 when he was in HS at recruiting event.

3-star to 4-star recruit from Utah. Tongan descent. Family has deep roots in area, connected to BYU and the LDS church. Dad played LB at Southern Utah and was a graduate student at BYU. Did a variety of sports growing up, including baseball, basketball, track, soccer and wrestling.

His HS team went 0-11 his FR season. He was mostly a RB until his JR year in HS. Only played 4 games his SR year due to a knee injury he suffered in an ATV accident. Punted in HS, substantial kick return experience in HS.

Captain for Cal in 2025 (It looks to me like he was the only captain. Maybe Cal does it differently than other schools and they only have one permanent captain each season.) One of 8 captains for BYU in 2026.

Intelligent, outgoing, vocal leader, mature, sense of humor, religious. Good student in HS.

Was a special teams player at beginning of true freshman season at Cal, then Jackson Sirmon's injury resulted in him becoming the starter. Sirmon is the son of former NFL linebacker Peter Sirmon, who was Cal's DC and is currently the LB coach for the Saints. Jackson Sirmon was a 2024 UDFA and is on the PS for the Saints.

Was a RB for 2 games at Cal during 2023 season.

Leg injury 2024. Right wrist/hand injury 2025. Right hand injury limited him spring 2026.

2023 (13 games, 6 starts) 66 tackles (35 solo) 6.5 TFLs, 2.5 sacks, 3 PBU, 2 INTs, 2 FF, 2 FR
2024 (9 games, 9 starts) 71 tackles (30 solo) 3 TFLs, 0.5 sacks, 2 PBU, 1 INt
2025 (12 games, 11 starts) 100 tackles (42 solo), 12 TFLs, 3 sacks, 6 PBU
2026 (BYU, 6 games, 6 starts) 35 tackles (22 solo), 3.5 TFLs, 0.5 sacks, 1 INT

Brian Bosarge: (+) Productive, zone coverage instincts, NFL-ready processor, football IQ, field general. A downhill hammer. Stood out as blitzer vs Notre Dame. (-) Undersized, gap leverage vs bigger OL, misses tackles.
Ian Cummings 119. (+) Compact, supercharged athleticism, twitch, explosiveness, range, sideline-to-sideline, covers large expanses to make plays, relentless energy, processor, zone IQ, elite coverage defender, blitzing burst, potential impact starter as WILL linebacker (-) Below average length, undersized, below average strength and power, loses ground vs blocks, 17% missed tackle rate, pursuit and angles and tackling form need improvement.
AtoZSports 124
NFLMDD consensus 160
Drafttek 219
Jacob Infante 236
Buffalo Fambase 237
FirstandTen 258 (projected Day 3 to UDFA)
Fanspeak 297
Sam Teets listed as a top name yet to be evaluated

 

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In Josh Edwards's (CBSSports) most recent mock draft, he had Drew Mestemaker as the top overall pick. Austin Simmons was 2nd. Charlie Becker 8th. Greg Johnson 16th. Xavier Gilliam 25th.

He has the Rams at slot 62 taking Mario Craver. Not a big fan of this pick. Craver has a high ceiling but he also has a huge bust factor. I think it would be a risky selection and in the draft I'd say I'm more conservative than the average person. The Rams don't have a 1st round pick or a 3rd round pick. So, using the 2nd round pick to draft a boom or bust type prospect creates a situation where if he busts the Rams could emerge from the 2027 draft with almost nothing, because what if all the later round picks only produce backup players?

 

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Part 2: Strengths

Leadership traits. Passionate on field. Team captain. Right personality to be leader of the defense. Intelligent and well spoken.

Thick build, a tank. Powerful thighs, thick arms, big hands relative to his frame. Good pound-for-pound play strength for his size.

Doesn't understand the concept of letting up. He's a stereo with no dial to turn down the volume. If he's on the field, it is full blast and ear-splitting loud. Even if his team is way ahead, he will attack the ball carrier with a baseball bat or tear into them like a wild, hungry dog. If you're his coach and you don't want the opposing coach to yell at you during post-game handshakes, take Uluave out of the game in the 4th quarter before someone gets hurt. Relishes the violence of football. He's giddy on the field, drunk with excitement when he hits opponents.

Instinctive and arrives with bad intentions. Downhill monster on search and destroy mission hunting for TFLs. Pursuit range to the sideline to get to the ball.

A QB injury waiting to happen, so you better be assignment sound and block him when he blitzes. QB needs to be careful throwing passes to the flat, because he'll "flatten" RBs and WRs in the flat.

Heavy hitter. A tackling machine.

Explosive. Plays like he's shot out of a cannon. A human blur when he triggers downhill. Reportedly hit 22 mph in GPS tracking.

Custom built to be a run blitzer. Might be the best run blitzing LB in the entire country. Perfect fit for an attack oriented defensive scheme where the DC loves to gamble and overwhelm the offense with frequent pass and run blitzes.

Aggressive and physical blitzer. Excellent closing burst to QB. Small size seems to help him corner if looping around other players. Runs over RBs trying to pass block. Nice swim move to defeat block.

Tough as nails.

Hand quickness to defeat 2nd level blocks.

Good twitch to jump and go for PBUs and INTs. Agility to avoid colliding with other defenders when sorting out routes in pass coverage.

If he gets the ball in his hands, a threat to score a defensive TD, because he has RB level long speed.

Has 4 career INTs. Baits QBs then jumps routes.

Very experienced. Has started games since his true FR season. Average age for draft prospect.

Nice blend of speed and physicality for special teams. Should be good on coverage units. I know it sounds odd, because he's a LB, but he's a legitimate candidate to be a kick returner. He's about the same size as Braelon Allen, the Jets RB and his projected 40 time is about the same as Blake Corum, so his overall athleticism and size is similar to an NFL RB prospect.

 

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Part 3: Weaknesses

Sawed-off frame, too short. Doesn't have the right body to be an NFL starting LB. Looks like a backup getting off the bus.

Below average length. Gets stuck on blocks. Bullied by bigger OL. Not a stack-and-shed LB. Gives up ground vs 2nd level blocks. Lacks length for pass rush moves.

A liability when you run the ball directly at him. Not good if he's at the POA. Repeatedly surrendered long RB runs when he got engulfed by blocks at POA and was unable to disengage.

Average tackling radius and below average drag-down power. Ankle tackler who dives at the legs of opponents and too often misses or has his tackle broken. Average stopping power. Poor effective length to wrap-up. RBs can break out of his arms. Prone to missed tackles. Makes low percentage tackle attempts.

Tight hips relative to his size. Stiffness and average redirect results in him having "spectacular" missed tackles on plays that should have been on his highlight video, but he can't finish it off and get the QB or RB to the ground.

Too upright in his posture, lacks hip fluidity. Below average pedal. Footwork not clean in transitions. Lacks fluidity making quick COD movements in space when in pass coverage or sorting through misdirection.

Runs himself out of position. He's really good as a downhill player in more or less a straight-line to the target but if the play is designed to go wide, he takes too aggressive of an angle to the ball, running himself into blocks and losing leverage, which can result in chunk plays for the offense. Overruns WR screens to the flat, exposing the defense if he misses the tackle.

Too small for man coverage duties vs big NFL tight ends. Poor lateral agility to stay with slot WRs or shifty RBs in coverage.

His attacking, overly physical style of play can result in penalties.

Gets fooled by misdirection and loses sight of the ball. Slow to read the mesh point. Takes false steps.

He wants to be the hero and get to the football himself. Sometimes, this results in him losing containment and not doing the dirty work to set up a different defender to make the tackle.

Poor position versatility. Questionable whether he can play any other spot besides WILL in the pros.

Injury history, including a leg injury when he was in HS. Physical, kamikaze style of play could result in durability problems in the pros.

 

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Part 4: Draft Grade and Pro Comp

Late round grade. (Ben Heeney, 5th round 2015, Raiders, Kansas)

Cade Uluave plays one of the least important positions on an NFL roster and he isn't an elite draft prospect but the potential "return on investment" if the Rams could get him on the cheap could be good. The way he's ranked on draft boards, it isn't certain that Uluave will even get drafted.

Omar Speights is a RFA after this season. If they were in the same draft class, I'd go with Uluave ahead of Speights, so there is a decent chance that if we put Uluave on the 2027 Rams, he could end up as a rookie starting LB. Since NFL teams often use nickel as the base grouping, maybe he only plays 50% of the defensive snaps but that's still not bad if we took him in say the 6th round. CJ Daniels was a 6th round pick and how many snaps has he played so far this season? Zero. If he plays more in the next few weeks, it likely will only be due to Davante Adams getting injured.

Ben Heeney was a stat-stuffer at Kansas. He had 127 tackles, including 88 solo, as a SR. He had 326 combined tackles over his final 3 seasons at KU. He had 4 INTs over his last 2 years. Heeney was a great downhill tackler, a captain and core special teams player but he missed a ton of tackles in college. He had a great Combine workout. Heeney struggled with injuries in the NFL.

When Sean McVay was with Washington, they had a similarly sized LB named Will Compton, an UDFA in 2013. Compton became a starter and in 2016 (McVay's final season with Washington) he had 106 tackles, 2nd on the team. I think that Uluave is a better prospect than Compton.

According to stats from PFR, the Rams rarely sent their ILBs on blitzes in 2025. There has been a very noticeable uptick in the Rams LB blitz frequency in 2026, but still not high relative to other teams. SISdatahub stats are consistent with the same idea. So, whether Uluave would be a good fit for the Rams depends on how Chris Shula wants to play defense. Is he not calling more blitzes because we don't have the right types of LBs or is it just part of his overall philosophy? Maybe adding someone like Uluave could be part of the evolution of the defense and tie-in to a fundamental shift in how the Rams play defense.

 

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A few hours ago, Sam Teets named Uluave as one of his "stock up" players for the week. Teets called him rangy and agile, versatile in coverage and reads the QB's eyes but misses tackles, struggles to shed blocks, overruns in pursuit and is undersized.

 

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Sam Teets released a new 3-round mock draft. There are multiple players (including in the top 50) that I've never heard of before and don't know anything about them. What else is new? The draft is still a long way away. Some other notes:

Charlie Becker is 4th overall. Nick Marsh is right behind him at 5th. Greg Johnson, who I had as a potential Rams target in the 2nd round, is 7th. Austin Simmons is 22nd.

There are multiple "big name" players the Rams could have drafted (e.g. David Stone, KJ Bolden) but Teets doesn't send them to us.

With the 42nd overall pick, Teets gives us A'Mauri Washington, DT from Oregon. Not a big fan of this pick.

Mike Matthews is the last pick in the 2nd round. Kade Pieper and Austin Siereveld are both 3rd rounders. Kayin Lee, a CB I've frequently drafted in the 6th to 7th round in simulators is a 3rd rounder.

Cade Uluave is the 50th overall selection in this mock.