Bohls: Texas' Burke starred in lacrosse in high school but making his mark in football

Ethan Burke never really intended to play football.

By all intents and purposes, he assumed he’d be playing on a college lacrosse team this fall and preferably at Maryland to whom he initially committed. As a high school freshman. No way did he figure he’d be lining up as a starting defensive end for the Texas Longhorns and going up against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Heck, he didn’t even play football until his freshman year at Westlake High School, and his mother didn’t even want him to play football.

Alabama, to be honest, probably didn’t either.

But Burke eventually won over his mother, who got on board with the idea that her now-6-foot-7 son might not be the one getting hurt if he did play football. He wasn’t all that sure himself.

But after a move to San Diego to be closer to his mother's family, he finally went out for the high school junior varsity football team before moving to Westlake and playing for three football 6A state championships for head coach Todd Dodge and defensive coordinator Tony Salazar, who has since succeeded Dodge, despite Burke missing most of his junior season with a collarbone injury he suffered in lacrosse.

And what was football’s appeal back then?

“Something about messing kids up,” Burke said with a wide grin Monday.

That’s something he's done on the regular.

More: Bohls: Texas could well run the table these last 10 games, but has to root for Alabama too

As for that first JV game, his father, Zack, unfortunately went to the wrong location and missed the whole thing. He got there after it ended, only to be approached by Ethan’s wild-eyed teammates’ parents.

“The other parents were going, ‘Oh my God, your kid’s an animal. What did you feed him?’“ Zack said. “They said from the first snap, he absolutely dominated.”

Burk is showing signs of doing that again. He obviously has a lot to work with.

Ethan’s a legit 6-foot-7. Or is he even bigger?

“No,” he said, “I’m right on it.”

As for growing pains, is he still growing?

“I hope not,” he said.

Thanks to his 6-foot-3 father and 5-foot-11 mother, who played volleyball at Maryland-Baltimore County, Ethan’s been blessed with great genes. He commands about an 83-inch wingspan and smooth, efficient style that, well, is still messing up older kids now. But he's cast aside lacrosse for football.

More: Golden: Texas and its defense landed a knockout against a college football heavyweight

He’s worked hard at perfecting his craft and built up his body with the help of a 5,500 calories-a-day diet that included a lot of protein. A whole lot of protein.

“He hit the protein hard,” Zack said. “We’re hunters, and he ate pounds and pounds of venison chorizo. Packs of pork chops. He got rid of the carbs and hit the vegetables and protein. It’s really stressful to keep him full.”

And what did Ethan remove from his diet to look so fit at 260 pounds?

“Bread,” Zack said. “We love bread.”

Thanks to that regimen, a taxing conditioning schedule and a lot of natural ability, Burke will be making some serious bread in short order. That became obvious against Alabama, a game the entire Burke family had circled as his potential breakout game. Zack attended, but his mother Jill stayed home for daughter Blake’s volleyball game.

“That was to be his coming-out party,” Zack said. “He’s put in a lot of work, and it all came together. Hey, either you’re going to do it or you’re not. You don’t go to the University of Texas and half-ass it.”

Burke wouldn’t know how to do that. Lazy steps are not exactly part of his vocabulary.

More: Two games in, Texas is showing off its pass rushing prowess

“He’s taking his game to the next level,” Dodge said. “When he got to us as a 6-3, 160-pound freshman, he was already wreaking havoc on the defensive line. Those string bean areas are getting rocked up.”

That hasn’t changed.

Off to a quick start this season

Burke got a sack in the season opener against Rice and followed it up with a takedown against Alabama. His seven tackles for loss rank third-best on the team. He and freshman Anthony Hill Jr. are rapidly emerging as elite pass-rushers for Texas and fulfilling an essential need.

Burke brings speed and strength to the position as well as an explosive burst off the line of scrimmage. Even though current and old teammate Michael Taaffe was the MVP of the 2021 state title game, Dodge said had not Taaffe had “that miraculous interception, the MVP probably would have been Ethan.”

The media got its introduction to the Texas defensive end Monday. But he’s already made a name for himself by starting the season opener and opening — and maybe shutting — some eyes with his performance in the 34-24 upset of Alabama.

He’s likely to open even more, now that the college football world is rediscovering Texas on a national level for the first time in almost 15 years.

With the Longhorns’ desperate need for an elite pass-rusher — something they haven’t had in a decade — defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski hasn’t been shy about relying on Burke as well as Hill in this role.

Burke was late to the football party, because of his commitment to lacrosse — the family even had a lacrosse goal in its backyard — but is making up for lost time. He attended just one football summer camp at SMU where he auditioned as a tight end even though he didn’t even know how to run a route. “He was a bit of an unknown,” Dodge said, but once word got out, others like Utah, Baylor, Air Force and Army came calling.

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian raved about Burke all summer, suggesting he’s stood out in fall training camp and was pressing for a starting position.

“He’s a natural pass rusher,” Sarkisian said, “and he’s got long arms.”

And it’s already paying off.

More: Longhorn Confidential: Are you changing your predictions for the 2023 Longhorns?

Becoming an All-American ... in lacrosse

Not bad for a young man who has always been enthralled with the sport of lacrosse same as his father, who also played that as well as football in high school before playing lacrosse at Maryland-Baltimore County and then for three years with the Philadelphia Wings. He became a lacrosse coach and still coaches Westlake's lacrosse team.

“He loves lacrosse,” Zack said. “It’s his thing. It’s what he’s done since he could walk.”

And how good was Ethan in lacrosse?

With his freakish athleticism and brute strength, he was a high school All-American and got deluged by college offers. By his estimation, he scored somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 goals his senior season at Westlake.

And his game-high? He remembers putting 10 or 11 balls in the net one game in the fourth grade.

“Yeah,” he said, cracking a wide smile, “I got a bike out of it.”

Guess NIL existed even back then.

While some Longhorns backups have scored some cash and cars through NIL deals, Burke's still cruising around in his 2012 Jeep Cherokee with 85,000 miles on the odometer. That may change soon because Zack said Ethan’s brother, Spencer, a linebacker on Westlake’s JV team, gets his driver’s license next week and needs a ride.

Zack joked with the director of the Longhorn One Fund, “Can he get a truck?” He will if Texas knows what it’s doing. But no one in the Burke family is hung up on money. Zack toiled as a professional lacrosse player, clearing $1,000 a game.

Ethan’s never given up his love for lacrosse but figures to make his bones in football. In fact, Michigan was the first to recruit Burke hard and invited him to Ann Arbor for the showdown game with Ohio State. Jim Harbaugh saw a football video that Zack had put on Facebook, and the Wolverines coach saw enough to offer him.

“It was snowing,” Dodge said, “and he loved it. They were really sold on him becoming the next Aidan Hutchinson.”

That might have been a possibility that Burke could have replicated the journey of the first-round 2022 draft pick who had 9½ sacks with the Detroit Lions last season after signing a four-year $36 million contract.

Burke wouldn’t make that kind of coin in lacrosse.

“In lacrosse, he looked like a power forward out there,” Dodge said. “He can flat-out run. He’s California cool, but he plays with his hair on fire.”

The call that changed everything

Texas was more than fortunate to get him because the Longhorns staff was slow to court him. In fact, Texas didn’t really seem to recruit him all that hard beyond a few texts between him and Kwiatkowski.

The day before signing day in 2022, that all changed.

Burke was sitting in an English class preparing for an oral presentation when his cell phone rang. A.J. Milwee, the Longhorns’ quarterback coach, was on the line.

Burke told a classmate he needed to take the call and went in the hallway where he was offered a chance to be a Longhorn. He accepted instantly.

“I thought, ‘It’s real,’“ Burke recalled. “I was freaking out.”

And how did his English presentation go afterward?

“Probably poorly,” he cracked.

He may not have aced that test. But he’s come on strong in his second season.

'He's a good kid with a good heart'

Burke models his game after former Houston Texan J.J. Watt — “he’s an obvious one” — and Chicago Bears linebacker Khalil Mack, who both won NFL defensive player of the year honors. Both were unheralded early in their careers as two-star recruits and started their careers more obscurely at Central Michigan and Buffalo before making it big.

But his favorite?

“Maxx Crosby,” Burke said of the ferocious Las Vegas Raiders defensive end, whose name is spelled with two x’s because he weighted 11 pounds, 9 ounces at birth. “For his persona. And his dirtiness.”

So does he consider himself a dirty player?

“I wouldn’t say that,” Burke said.

Neither would his dad, who describes his oldest son this way.

“I would say he’s chill,” Zack said. “Like, ‘What’s up, bro?’ I’ve never seen him yell at anyone or be mean to someone outside his brother sometimes. He’s a good kid with a good heart. But when they blow the whistle, something clicks, and he turns into a beast.”

That he does.

And Burke knows if football doesn’t work out, he’s always got a fallback in lacrosse.

Saturday's game

Wyoming (2-0) at No. 4 Texas (2-0), 7 p.m., LHN, 1300

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Lacrosse is Burke's first love but football is growing on this giant