4 overreactions from Texas football’s dominant win over ULM

The highly anticipated regular season opener took place for head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program on the night of Sep. 3 at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Texas took on head coach Terry Bowden and the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks out of the Sun Belt on Sep. 3, to get what will be a difficult September slate underway.

Next up for Sark and the Longhorns will be a massive battle at home in Austin against the No. 1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in Week 2. Texas will face Alabama at DKR in the heat of the late Texas summer, with the kickoff time set for 11 a.m. CT on Sep. 10.

Before we dig into that meeting with Alabama next weekend, though, we have some things to talk about from this 52-10 win over ULM at home in the opener. Texas looked good on the defensive side of the ball in this game, and the offense certainly had some flashes.

But most of the ups and downs from this game were delivered courtesy of the special teams. We certainly saw plenty of highs and lows from the unit under special teams coordinator/tight ends coach Jeff Banks in the opener.

Hyperbolic takes for Texas football following the win over ULM

With that in mind, here’s a look at four overreactions from the Longhorns’ win in the season opener over ULM on Sep. 3.

Barryn Sorrell is ready to step up as the primary edge rusher

There is a reason that this is a list of overreactions for the Longhorns following the season opener during this holiday weekend. While we did learn a little bit about multiple units for the Longhorns in this game, we will figure out more about this team in the next few weeks.

One player that certainly stood out for the Longhorns in this game was the former blue-chip recruit and sophomore defensive end/edge rusher Barryn Sorrell.

In 45 pass rush snaps last season, Sorrell registered four quarterback pressures and one sack. Meanwhile, Sorrell came up with three quarterback pressures and a game-high two sacks in just nine snaps as a pass rusher against ULM on Sep. 3.

It’s crazy to think that Sorrell is now one sack away this season from already topping the team leader for the Longhorns from the 2021 campaign. Texas wasn’t able to generate much of any pass rush last season, and that phase of this defense looked more lively this weekend.

I’m going to wait to make a definitive judgment on the outlook for Sorrell this fall until the conclusion of the non-conference slate. It’s hard to make any definitive projection of his pass rush outlook for the rest of the season against an offensive line that struggled last year as much as the Warhawks.

Yet, it’s difficult to not get excited about what we saw from the starting buck end edge rusher in this game. Sorrell had a career night in this 42-point win over ULM.