Texas Football: 3 overreactions from unnerving win over West Virginia

2) Overreactions from Texas football’s win over WVU: Linebackers are finally stepping up

For the first time this season, the Longhorns got a game-winning performance out of their linebackers. The weakness of the Texas defense in almost every game heading into the weekend so far this season was the linebackers. Texas had a plethora of missed tackles, missed assignments, and various injuries throughout the linebacking corps up to this point.

About the only constant that first-year defensive coordinator/safeties coach Chris Ash could rely upon among his linebackers in the first six games of the season was junior star Joseph Ossai. But Ossai was actually one of the least reliable linebackers for the Longhorns in the win over West Virginia, which is a rare sight for this team.

Ossai had a career day in the Longhorns win over Oklahoma State last weekend. He registered a whopping six tackles for loss and three sacks last weekend. But that production waned in the wake of a big outing for junior linebackers DeMarvion Overshown and Juwan Mitchell.

The former of those two junior linebackers registered two tackles for loss, one sack, and eight combined tackles. Overshown also had one forced fumble on the day. What was even more impressive for Overshown was just one missed tackle and three stops on third down.

Mitchell had a really nice game too in the win over West Virginia. He registered nine combined tackles and one tackle for loss. Mitchell also had two quarterback pressures, only one missed tackle, and three third down stops.