UW's Fast-Rising Ulofoshio Singled Out as Nation's Best LB
Every Power 5 football program — all 65 of them, including the University of Washington — whiffed on Edefuan Ulofoshio in 2018.
No scholarship offers.
No partial tuition.
Nothing.
For whatever reason, only FCS schools Northern Arizona and Robert Morris, which sound more like a tour package and a talent agency, sent financial-aid packages in the inside linebacker's direction.
Ulofoshio walked on at the UW, paid for his first two years of college and since has proven all of the big schools wrong and reaffirmed what those two smaller ones saw in him.
He's the heart and soul of the Huskies defense, a returning second-team All-Pac-12 selection and a realistic All-America candidate.
Now there's more.
While UW teammates Jaxson Kirkland and Trent McDuffie recently were projected as NFL draft first-rounders next April, Ulofoshio's football star continues to shine in other ways.
Pro Football Focus, which uses all sorts of metrics and grades to conduct its research, singled out the Huskies' 6-foot-1, 240-pound junior from Las Vegas as the nation's top returning linebacker.
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based outfit picked him ahead of, in this order, LSU's Mike Jones, Troy's Carlton Martial, Nebraska's JoJo Domann and Indiana's Micah McFadden. Its story can be accessed here.
PFF's glowing assessment of the UW's serious second-row overachiever went as follows:
"He may have only seven career starts to his name, but the 2018 two-star walk-on has done enough to cement his place as one of the top off-ball linebackers in all of college football. Ulofoshio has yet to have a bad outing in his two years of game action at Washington, proving to be a consistent playmaker in every facet of play.
"Across 452 snaps since 2019, Ulofoshio has posted a grade above 82.0 against the run, as a pass-rusher and in coverage. No one else in the Power Five accomplished the feat in that span. His tackling is no issue, either, as he missed just five times across 93 career attempts, forming a 5.4 percent missed tackle rate that ranks third among Power Five linebackers.
"Don’t sleep on Ulofoshio; he’s legit."
Naturally, other national analysts and a bunch of college football fans took issue with the PFF selections, particularly those who noted the absence of all Alabama linebackers from the top of this listing.
CFBSaturdays.com responded on social media by offering its list of top linebackers in comparison, a group that ranked Ulofoshio sixth nationally, behind Iowa State's Mike Rose, Auburn's Owen Pappoe, California's Kuony Deng, Auburn's Zakoby McClain and Troy's aforementioned Martial.
Ulofoshio, while entering his fourth year in the UW football program, is no longer a secret, no hidden talent, certainly no walk-on.
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