4 overreactions from Texas football’s complete team win over WVU

Barryn Sorrell is on his way to becoming an impact pass rusher for Texas

After having a rather quiet last two games, sophomore edge rusher Barryn Sorrell rose to the occasion for the Longhorns rushing the passer against West Virginia. Sorrell had his best game of the season since Texas’ win in the season opener on Sep. 3 at home over the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks.

Sorrell posted a career-best 1.5 sacks and two tackles for loss against UL-Monroe. But his impact on this pass rush essentially faded away in the three games between the opener and this weekend against West Virginia.

Yet, we saw Sorrell keep making some positive strides in his development as an impact pass rusher this weekend as he came up with 1.5 sacks on three total quarterback pressures.

In this win over West Virginia, Sorrell was getting home faster and took advantage of some clean-up on pressure sacks that Texas generated thanks to the movement from the interior defensive line. It also helped that Sorrell and the Longhorns were facing a slower quarterback in Daniels than they did last weekend in Texas Tech’s dual-threat Donovan Smith.

This was a testament to Sorrell and the Texas edge players doing a better job of setting the edge and containing the quarterback. Obviously, the aforementioned immobility of Daniels played a big role in Sorrell being able to get home multiple times in this game.

But the fact of the matter is that Sorrell could be the best true edge rusher that the Longhorns have on the roster this season. He’s certainly having a much more productive season than senior edge rusher Ovie Oghoufo. Co-DC/LB coach Pete Kwiatkowski and the Longhorns will continue to have to rely on Sorrell to help spark this pass rush for the rest of the season.