Burks camping for more offers

Charles Burks is not the prototypical defensive end at 6 feet 1 and 230 pounds but the Huntington Beach (Calif.) Edison prospect said that's what makes him unique, not a liability on the football field.

"A lot of coaches want to see me in person just to see if I'm really what I say I am but I don't look at it as a bad thing," Burks said. "It's something that makes me different and makes me stick out.

"You're not going to see a lot of 6-1 dudes out there playing d-end and doing just as well as someone who's 6-5 or 6-6. It's a little bonus, it adds something to make me more unique."

Burks, one of the top defensive ends at the Los Angeles NIKE Camp, has high interest in Stanford and also has offers from Army, Duke, San Diego State, San Jose State and Northern Arizona.

He's doing his best to get noticed at summer camps as well. Burks worked out at UCLA two weekends ago, went to USC this past weekend, is currently at Boise State where he hopes to get offered and will go to Stanford next weekend.

When Burks, who finished with 52 tackles and 14 sacks last season, went to UCLA the Bruins' coaching staff had him work out at linebacker just to see if that's a position he could play down the road.

"They want to see me work more at linebacker," said Burks, who still has Stanford as his favorite. "I did linebacker the whole time when I went to their camp and I did pretty good. It was different learning the position but I think it went over well. They liked working with me and they wanted to see me come back."

Burks has legitimate interest in Boise State and that's why he spent his own money to find a way to camp there this week. He's in regular contact with defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski and is working to get another offer to add to the list. One from the Broncos would be huge.

"I've talked to them a lot," Burks said. "I call coach (Kwiatkowski) about once every week and they wanted me to come up to their camp and I decided to come up because I like the coaches and I wanted to come up and ball out.

"I'm not sure yet about an offer. I'd love to get an offer from there. Of course that's my goal and I'm not going to do anything less than my best in order to try and make that a reality. It's been a great program the last few years."

Stanford's camp next weekend will be another important step for Burks, who probably won't commit soon but wants to show the Cardinal coaches that he can be a legitimate defensive end in the Pac-10. That's definitely one of his goals even though he is undersized.

"Things are good with Stanford," he said. "I'll be up at their camp next weekend. Hopefully, I can go out there and show the coaches what I have and what I can do."