The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
NFL Combine Q&A: Adam Ulatoski
02.23.2010 | Football
Feb. 23, 2010
How is your training going?
It's going well. I've been out in Arizona training in Phoenix at Athletes' Performance. I think they do a really good job out here. They've been around, they've done it a lot and they've trained a lot of really good athletes. I talked to Brian Orakpo and Roy Miller about it, because they both trained here, and they really loved it. That's where I've been for the past several weeks, and Charlie (Tanner)'s out here, Gerald McCoy from OU is here and about 20 other guys.
Is there anyone you've connected with of the guys you didn't know?
Yeah, there are a bunch of guys - Vince Oghobaase of Duke, Arthur Jones of Syracuse and John Asamoah of Illinois - I've gotten pretty tight with them, and then Gerald. We joke around a lot that if the fans at Texas and OU saw us joking around like we do they probably wouldn't like it too much.
What has your routine been like out there?
At the beginning it was a little lighter than I expected, but the reason was they really wanted to teach us technique. Their philosophy is that you can get really strong and do well or you can learn technique and do well, but they prefer to do both. The first week is just learning the right techniques to do all the things. Then we'd go in there and workout twice a day. We'd go in the morning and they'd give us breakfast that fit exactly to the calories we needed, then we'd go workout, we'd have a lifting session and a running session. It alternated between legs and upper body one day, then multidirectional drills and straight line speed. We'd have a shake, and at lunch we'd have another meal that fit to our calories, but we could pick whatever we wanted from a list of five or six things. Whatever you choose would be made to the right nutritional needs.
After the afternoon workout we'd have another shake and always have to go in the cold plunge. It's the least favorite thing of everybody, but I feel like it really helps. Everybody stayed fresh throughout the whole thing. We also had regeneration, which was a lot of trigger point and foam rolling, which also helped us stay fresh. Then they'd send us home with dinner and a snack. We had to eat six times a day, but they were smaller meals to increase the metabolism. I feel like I've improved a bunch and I'm ready to go out and compete now.
What kind of things have they been telling you and what have you been focusing on?
It's everything. It's presenting yourself in a professional manner. The NFL is a business, and we're going to the biggest interviews of our lives right now. You really only get one shot, so they've done everything from going over Wonderlic strategies, which is the academic test, to videotaping us doing interviews and telling us what we needed to work on and focus on. They even looked at Facebook pages to make sure everything was clean and good to go there. They really like to teach you things so that you can do them on your own. They taught us about nutrition and how it can help us. Really, the overall experience has been great. I feel prepared because they've covered everything. We have position work drills with former NFL coaches, and actually the position coach I've worked with just a job with the Denver Broncos, so he'll at least be a familiar face in some of these interviews. It's been a good ride so far and I hope it continues.
Have you talked to many former Longhorns who are in the NFL to get advice?
I talked to Roy a lot, and I talked to Chris Ogbonnaya a lot. They've been helpful calming me down a little bit. A lot of guys build this up in their head to something more than what it is, and they've just helped calm me down by saying, "You're going to be ready. You're a smart guy, just go out there and be yourself." That's what I've been focusing on -¬ just showing the teams the real me and not getting flustered during interviews.
And on the field, what have you been focusing on?
It's kind of interesting. I played right tackle in my freshman and sophomore years at Texas, but I when I moved to left tackle I had been focusing on that, so I had to work on a bunch of the drills from the right and get comfortable with that again. Luckily, it hasn't been too hard of a transition because I've played it before. Some of the drills are similar to what coach McWhorter taught us, which has been really helpful. There's a lot of technique you just try to soak up. We've done some drills for improving as an offensive lineman, but a lot of our focus has been for the drills we'll do in the combine.
How well prepared do you feel coming out of UT and having the NFL support system?
That's one of the great things about UT is that we've had so much success in the NFL. There are a bunch of guys I can call. I talked to Quan (Cosby) a little bit, to Roy, Ogbonnaya, (Kasey) Studdard, Lyle Sendlein, (Justin) Blalock a little bit. Everybody always cares about you because the Longhorns are such a tight family. Then with coach McWhorter, he's always there for you. He did a great job of getting us prepared and getting us where we are. We're thankful to have had him as our coach. Plus, coach Madden and his staff did a great job getting us ready for everything we're facing, so I feel really prepared from what I learned at Texas.
In that line, what did you think at the National Championship Game when you were getting ready for kickoff and you see almost 30 NFL guys there to support you?
It was like an all-star show. It was a bunch of guys that you watched when you were growing up and guys you played with who are now in the NFL. They're guys you looked up to and helped mentor you. It was amazing to see all those guys and talking to some you hadn't been able to see for a while.
Now it's time for the combine, but what comes after that, and how about your wedding plans?
After the combine, I'll go back to Phoenix and train, and then we have our Pro Day in Austin at the end of March. Then, we sit and wait to hear from different teams leading up to the draft. But coming up in July, I'm really excited about our wedding. I'm engaged to Emily Gove and we're going to get married in Austin. It's really exciting and we'll see a bunch of guys from the team and I can't wait for it.
