Goal for Recovering Ulofoshio Is to Make UW Linebacker Wall
Edefuan Ulofoshio is not actively involved in University of Washington football practices these days, yet he's fully involved.
On Tuesday, as his teammates conducted game-week interviews, the injured player grabbed a sports publicist's phone and joined the reporters who were interviewing his fellow linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala, getting him to laugh.
Ulofoshio next gave wide receiver Rome Odunze a big hug in a similar media scrum, wrapping him up but not taking him to the ground as he normally might an opposing player.
While injured Huskies usually are off limits to the press, an exception was made for the idle 6-foot-1, 235-pound junior from Las Vegas, one of the team leaders, who held court alongside his healthier teammates who are preparing to meet Kent State on Saturday night in Husky Stadium.
A starter for parts of the past three seasons, Ulofoshio is handling his recovery as one might expect highly-motivated defender to do.
"It's a non-ideal situation, but I was always raised up, not only in high school but as a kid, is who are you when adversity strikes?" Ulofoshio said. "When that happens, the goals are still the same. You kind of have to keep working, keep grinding and keep your head down, and come back stronger."
"It's been hard. I won't say it has been easy."
Ulofoshio, still considered on of the top linebackers nationwide by most analysts, injured an arm in last year's UCLA game and had surgery, and missed the final six games of the season.
Following the coaching change from Jimmy Lake to Kalen DeBoer, he experienced the double whammy. of hurting a knee during winter workouts and he underwent more surgery.
Ulofoshio now isn't expected to return until the latter half of the season, possibly in November when four games remain.
DeBoer, however, says don't discount the defensive leader from exceeding the normal recovery timeline placed in front of him.
"We're doing all the right things," Ulofoshio said. "We're not necessarily pushing it over. If I'm doing basically everything I'm supposed to do, that's not pushing it, is it?
While idle, Ulofoshio still turns up fairly regularly in all of the preseason accolades, including last week when the Associated Press named him to the second unit of its preseason All-America team, making him one of the top 54 players in the country. AP teams usually are considered the gold standard for player honors.
"That's definitely an honor, especially at a place like the U-Dub," he said. "One of my goals I've ever had is we have our linebacker room and it has Shaq Thompson and all the other great linebackers and hopefully one day I'll be able to be part of the wall of the linebackers.
"That's always been one of my goals. I don't take that lightly at all."
A pre-med student, UIofoshio has two seasons of college football eligibility remaining if he chooses. In a perfect world for him, and he didn't say this, Ulofoshio would return this fall, show he's back to top form and enter the NFL draft.
Of course, the fifth-year UYW player, who is undecided whether to reclaim his old No. 48 or switch to No. 4, is not ready to commit to anything right now other than returning at some point.
"The smart thing to do is get rid of as many pre-med classes as possible," he said jokingly. "And then you go to the league and you have to pay for medical school. We're definitely [considering] those things. We'll see. .. I've been in college a long time."
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