Studdard remains in Texas, sharing his love of BBQ, football and the outdoors.

Retired offensive lineman Kasey Studdard boiled more than 10,000 pounds of crawfish last year with his company, Studbugs, traveling around Austin, Texas, to share his love of the food at saloons and Longhorns football games.

The former Highlands Ranch High School and University of Texas star also has his own radio talk show — “Big Ugly Outdoors,” which focuses on hunting and fishing.

Studdard doesn’t anticipate ever leaving the Lone Star State — his brand is too big there after helping the Longhorns win the 2005 national championship and playing five years with the NFL’s Houston Texans — but his ultimate entrepreneurial goal is to have a line of barbecue restaurants, including one such joint in Colorado.

“Being here in Austin, you run into a lot of good pit masters, and I got the opportunity to team up with a few of them with the Studbugs food truck,” Studdard said. “My ultimate goal is to open up my own barbecue chain, and to have one in Colorado so that I can bring some good Texas barbecue back there and have a home there for the summers.”

Studdard, the son of former Broncos offensive tackle Dave Studdard and the fifth member of his family to play for the Longhorns, is still widely regarded as one of the best offensive linemen to ever come out of Colorado. He graduated from Highlands Ranch in 2002 and was drafted in 2007 after starting for four years at Texas.

He recalls his time at Highlands Ranch with fondness, noting how having his dad as his line coach was the tough love he needed to continue improving.

“My dad really elevated my game because as a kid that was always one of the best players on the team, he made sure I knew I still had to work harder than everyone else,” Studdard said. “That’s the philosophy I lived by in high school and I still live by today.”

The two-time All-Colorado selection also emphasized that there is a learning curve between being a good high school player in the Centennial State and being good on a national scale.

“It was a culture shock when I went down to Texas because it was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to get better fast,’ ” Studdard said. “Some of the kids I signed with — like (future pros) Justin Blalock and Tim Crowder and Brian Orakpo — were already grown men coming out of high school. You’ve got to be extra special to get out of Colorado to a top Division I program because the competition’s just so much higher in other states like Texas, Louisiana, California and Florida.

“If you’re from Colorado and you really want to be great, you’ve got to put in the time. That’s one of the biggest takeaways of my entire career.”