Adam Ulatoski goes unnoticed sometimes. He’s one of the rocks on Texas’ offensive line, but you probably won’t hear much from him or about him.
That seems hard for the 6-foot-8-inch, 302-pound offensive tackle.
Not if you ask offensive line coach Mac McWhorter.
McWhorter called Ulatoski “Mumbles” his entire freshman year.
“He called him that because he never talked much, and when he did talk, it was real soft like he was mumbling,” offensive coordinator Greg Davis said.
Ulatoski redshirted behind Jonathan Scott, Justin Blalock and Kasey Studdard in 2005. All three are in the NFL now. Needless to say, there wasn’t much room for the little freshman to speak up. Um, well, maybe the not-so-little freshman.
“I didn’t have much I could say to them, so I stayed quiet,” Ulatoski said.
That’s probably a good idea, considering Studdard is the anti-Ulatoski. The tackle from Colorado was known to get in opponents’ faces and didn’t pull any punches, even with his own players.
“I don’t know anybody that has as big of a mean streak as Kasey, but I don’t know anybody else that does either,” Ulatoski said.
Ulatoski said he not only learned from Studdard to occasionally speak up in practice but how to let intensity make up for problems in technique. Anytime he sees himself focusing on his technique, he just thinks back to Studdard.“As coach McWhorter would tell you, Kasey had bad technique,” he said. “But he would get his job done, and he would dominate people because of his attitude and the way he approached the game. I’m always focusing on technique and all the little things. I need to try and let some of that go and just get after it.”
Ulatoski finds himself stepping in the shoes of the three big tackles now that they’ve all graduated. This week, head coach Mack Brown compared Ulatoski to Scott, Blalock and even Leonard Davis. “He’s in that group, considering the impact he should have,” Brown said. “It’s hard to say one’s a little better than the other, but he’ll be in that group before he finishes.”
And with that pressure comes a little bit of an obligation to speak up. Ulatoski coaches the relatively young offensive line, which helped last year when veterans started dropping with injuries and redshirt freshmen and true freshmen were thrown into starting positions.
“I [have] kind of came out of my shell now,” Ulatoski said. “I guess my redshirt freshman year I started talking a little bit more, and it just got more natural and more natural. I still don’t like being the guy that talks all the time, but if something needs to be said I’ll say it.”
Ulatoski’s first big game came his redshirt freshman year against Nebraska. He saw action in the frigid 22-20 win, which came on the heels of a winning field goal by Ryan Bailey.
During that game, he faced off against current NFL defensive ends Adam Carriker and Jay Moore.
“It didn’t matter which side you’re on, you’re going against a top-round draft pick,” Ulatoski said. “It was encouraging to see that you’re playing against the best that you’re ever going to go against, so it doesn’t get much harder than that.”
Ulatoski learned how to deal with pressure while playing at Southlake Carroll High School, where he won a state championship and lost another title game.
“The pressure there helped,” he said. “I wasn’t just thrown in there without any expectations. It’s state-or-nothing at Southlake, and it was the same thing here.”
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