Three-plus crystal-clear facts about BYU linebacker Cade Uluave lead to a couple of questions with fogged-over answers, answers that, as of here and now, will be murky no more.

The facts first: 1) Uluave’s father, Kalisi, and grandfather, Peter, are BYU football fans, season-ticket holders, forces for good in their communities, and Cade, a few years back, would have relished them cheering for him dressed out in blue; 2) For the past three seasons, Uluave has been his own force at Cal, leading the Bears in tackles in 2025 with 100, being named first-team all-ACC, becoming the top linebacker in the most recent transfer portal; and 3) Along with Isaiah Glasker, Uluave will form at BYU one of the best linebacking groups in the Big 12, one of the nation’s best.

Now, to the questions.

The initial query: Why didn’t Uluave come to BYU straight out of Herriman’s Mountain Ridge High School?

The answer: BYU didn’t want him.

The second question: When he could have gone just about anywhere, why did Uluave make himself available to the Cougars years after they blew him off?

The answer there lands at the end of a circuitous road, a sometimes bumpy and magical road, a road worth traveling.

It commences where the route was initially graded, where it first laid down pavement — when Uluave felt a strong urge to play football as a kid. Growing up in South Jordan, he looked around at his friends, many of whom were donning helmets and pads. That urge became a yearning when his father disallowed him from playing until he was a teenager.

“I was itching to play so bad,” he says. “When I finally got the chance, I fell in love with it.”

That love was hard-earned. When Uluave entered high school, he could have enrolled at Herriman High, where most of his football-playing friends attended, or he could follow his older sister to the brand-new school in the area — Mountain Ridge. He chose the latter. What he considered a good move for him academically and socially started as something of a nightmare in football.

The Sentinels had little talent, and Uluave played as a freshman as an undersized defensive end and, on occasion, as an offensive lineman. Mountain Ridge finished winless that season.

“We were like a JV team,” he says. “It was tough. It sucked. We had nobody. We got throttled every game.”

The upside was that Uluave was on the field, becoming a team leader from an early age. His sophomore season, he played running back and linebacker.

From that juncture on, not only did the team start winning, but he established himself as an accomplished two-way player to the point where teams like UCLA and Cal grew interested in him.

He didn’t have exceptional size (he’s now listed at 6-foot-1, 235 pounds), but Uluave played with a fury. And life on the whole was good.

“Everything was money,” he says, when, amid the local recruiting silence, Cal offered him, and he committed to the Bears at the start of his senior year. Then, disaster struck.

While riding a four-wheeler in Cedar City, he and his machine soared over the top of a suddenly-steep-descending dirt hill. As Uluave’s body launched, his leg got caught in the ATV, resulting in what seemed to be a severe tendon tear in his left knee. It was the first week of September, and his senior season was done. Difficult it was for him to see that he was fortunate to be able to move at all.

“I had the whole world in front of me,” he says. And then, he wasn’t sure what he had. “There was nothing I could do about it. It was terrible.”

Uluave went to a doctor who told him he needed total knee reconstruction and that he’d be out for upward of a year.

“I was distraught,” he says. “My heart just dropped. I started crying. What was I going to tell my coaches at Cal?”

At that point, football was his life.

Just about the time Uluave got around to appreciating that he had survived the accident, recognizing the outcome could have been much worse — “It was a miracle I was still alive,” he says — he limped toward another miracle.

After being talked into seeing yet another doctor, a physician of some renown who worked with athletes at the University of Utah and the Utah Jazz, that doctor informed him that the tear in his knee was an uncommon one, that it would heal without surgery over a span of just three months, if it was properly rehabbed and reconditioned.

“I had felt so low mentally, physically and spiritually, and now, I had hope,” he says. “I was able to participate in track my senior year. Unbelievable, I know. I’ve thought about that — a lot.”

His takeaway: “You can’t take anything for granted. Nothing you do in life is guaranteed. You have to take advantage of every moment you’re given.”

Halfway through his freshman year at Cal, he was starting. In subsequent years, he starred.

He remembers his first play from scrimmage, coming after an injury to a more veteran ‘backer opened the door for Uluave’s newfound opportunity. It was a tackle for a loss, and, in that moment, he was like a dog floating through the air with a meaty biscuit in his mouth.

From there, most everything on the field ramped up. He eventually teamed with Teddye Buchanan, a fellow linebacker now playing for the Baltimore Ravens. That tandem became known at Cal as “The Bash Brothers.”

Getting used to the environment at Berkeley was another matter. The kid from Utah had to grow accustomed to the sometimes-imagined, sometimes-real fear and loathing there. “The culture was different,” he says. “I told my mom, ‘Some of these people are crazy.’ It was a huge culture shock.”

The academics were all good, though. Education was important to him and his family. Uluave’s father, who attended grad school at BYU, is an assistant principal; his mom, meanwhile, is a teacher.

Beyond missing a few games on account of a bone fracture his sophomore season, Uluave’s football has been near-perfection. He downplays it a bit, calling last season, his junior year, “solid.”

As mentioned, it was much more than that, earning postseason attention, awards and accolades.

“It was pretty good,” he concedes. “It was fun.”

The best part of Uluave’s game, according to him, is his instinctive play: “I have a natural feel for the game. Some people say I’m explosive and twitchy. I can break on the ball and make plays. I’m a high-motor guy. I try to play with relentless effort.”

BYU defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga is one of those people: “Cade’s learning what we do here. He’s fast and explosive and he’ll definitely help us. He and Glasker and others can be real good together.”

Uluave says he felt “comfortable” and “respected” as a team captain at Cal, but coming into his senior season, he was looking for a change. The Bears’ coaching staff had been fired, so he headed for an escape hatch — the portal, where he sought more than just fresh air to breathe.

He found his prize, he says, at BYU, where, months in now, he’s happily blowing the Cougars’ trumpet:

“I wanted to get developed. Here, they develop their linebackers. Jack Kelly is a good example. Isaiah Glasker is a super player. If you look back in the past, there was Fred Warner, maybe the best linebacker in the NFL. It’s been good to hear different perspectives from different coaches.

“And I just wanted to have a good experience my senior year. There’s no better experience than being at home. Being able to drive home in 30 minutes for Sunday dinner. It’s been phenomenal. My brother is playing his senior year at Mountain Ridge. Going to his games is something I look forward to.

“And then, there’s the BYU brand, the logo. The things they do here. I’ve seen a lot of community service. There’s a lot of things I wanted to be a part of.

“And I want to win. At Cal, we were a .500 team. The things I’ve seen at BYU, the trajectory, it looks good. It’s a freaking good team. You can’t say no to it.”

He couldn’t. He didn’t.

Uluave puts a wrap on what sounds like a Cougar promotional ad thusly: “If we put all the pieces together, the potential is as high as it can be. You have to work and do what’s necessary to be successful. … I just want to win.”

He throws in one more tidbit, one of particular significance to him.

“I’m home and excited to make my mark in Provo, to be here, like my dad and my grandpa have done, living as part of a legacy. I love it.”