photo by Brian Bahr

Sam Acho considers himself an overachiever, but not because he always ends up doing what he sets his mind to. For Acho, it isn't about where he decides to go but rather what he picks up along the way.

A decade ago, Acho thought he was on his way to an Ivy League education, but he wound up with an athletic career. And in the Texas Longhorns' season opener on Saturday, Acho had every intention of going after the Louisiana-Monroe quarterback but kept finding the football instead.

“It was right there,” Acho said of a fumble he recovered during the No. 2 Longhorns' 59-20 victory.

It's not as though the junior defensive end has merely stumbled into his success. The son of a Nigerian-born North Texas psychologist, Acho enrolled at St. Mark's private school in Dallas in the second grade, thinking he'd someday attend Harvard.

But while his grades flourished just as his parents had hoped, so did his physical stature. He and his younger brother, Emmanuel — who's now a UT linebacker — became dominant athletes, and in his sophomore year, Sam received his first football recruiting letter from TCU.

“That's when I started thinking, ‘OK, this might be a pretty cool opportunity,” Acho said.

Even though Acho considered offers to play in the Ivy League and at Stanford, he decided on UT. He liked not only coach Mack Brown's pitch and what the school had to offer academically, but also an atmosphere he could relate to. Before he signed with UT, his parents got to know the parents of former defensive end Brian Orakpo, who also has Nigerian heritage.

Acho (6-3, 260 pounds) played in 11 games as a freshman and 13 as a sophomore, but only as a backup. However, with UT needing to overhaul its line this summer, defensive coordinator Will Muschamp had no hesitancy to install him as a starter.

“He's enhanced his ability by working hard,” Muschamp said. “He's in the weight room; he studies the game. … He's just a great example of the intangible things that, if a guy can do it, he really will benefit as a football player. ”

With Sergio Kindle lining up at the opposite end and commanding double teams, Acho will sometimes be left unaccounted for by offenses. Saturday, his quick penetration helped him cover two fumbles – one was officially credited to Kindle, although both players were on the ball – and provided a glimpse of the intensity he doesn't always show off the field.

Said Kindle, who helped Acho celebrate his 21st birthday Sunday with a raucous night of staying home and watching TV: “He's a pretty laid-back guy when he's not in the books or in the playbook.”

But Acho, who tested out of 26 hours of UT courses, including calculus, said he's not a typical bookworm.

“I'm more like a big-picture guy,” Acho said.

Even if he doesn't see the whole thing until he gets there.