Former All-Pro Luke Kuechly Provides Inspiration for Cade Uluave

He played his entire eight-year career with the Carolina Panthers, all but the final four games under coach Ron Rivera, now the Bears’ general manager. Kuechly retired after the 2019 season at the age of 28 due to concerns about the long-term effects of concussions.

But he shared the enthusiasm he still has for the game with Uluave. Among the advice he offered was to embrace the moment.

“His career wasn’t super-long in the NFL,” Uluave said, “so he’s like, `Hey man, if I could go back, I would. This is the best time, being able to go to fall camp and put on the pads and run around. There’s nothing better, so just enjoy.”

Uluave said he picked Kuechly’s brain for tips and one theme surfaced repeatedly. 

“He said a lot of times just be a leader, especially in the inside linebacker group. And being an inside linebacker, you’re kind of the leader of the defense. It’s just kind of how it is,” Uluave said. “You’ve got to know what you’re front’s doing, you’ve got to know what the secondary’s doing. And yourself, obviously. So you kind of run the show. 

“He hit on that a lot. You should be the guy on the defense that knows it in and out because you’re the one who’s running it.”

Uluave talks in the video about about how he spent extra time in the offseason watching film with coaches, even offensive coaches, to improve his understanding of the game.

“A big step for me is to become more knowledgeable in the game and be one step ahead. It’s easy ti kind of `see ball, get ball,’ “ he said. “Once you realize what the offense is trying to do, it gives you an advantage. That’s what I’m going to try to do.

“And another thing is encourage my teammates. When you have teammates around play good, you’ll play good. Try to be a leader as much as I can, encourage the team and help them get better and then they help me get better.”

In the video above, Uluave talks about what the Cal defense will look like this season under new co-coordinators Terrence Brown and Vic So’oto, who have replaced the departed Justin Wilcox.

“Defensively, what you’ll see this year will be pretty similar," Uluave explained. “Last year we had a solid year. We were held to a standard and . . . we’re still going to hold ourselves to the same expectations. As far as schematically, everything’s going to be pretty similar.”

In this video, Uluave describes the emotional tone Brown and So’oto bring to practice.

“Tons of energy . . . just super pumped up, ready to go. They both bring that juice every single day and I think that’s going to show us what we can do on defense and we’re going to act the same way.”