Texas football vs. Iowa State: 4 bold predictions for a tricky matchup

Barryn Sorrell gets home twice

I mentioned in the last prediction how Texas needs the pass rush to come through in a big way this weekend. Texas’ pass rush could make a big difference between Texas getting Iowa State off the field with just one or two sets of downs compared to staying on the field for long drives, thus keeping the Cyclones in the game.

Yet, the good news here is that Texas is facing a quarterback that is taking a lot of sacks this season. Thus far, Dekkers ranks second in the Big 12 among quarterbacks, having taken a whopping 15 sacks on the season.

The combination of throwaways and scrambles for Dekkers while coming under pressure also doesn’t match the number of sacks he’s taken.

That is indicative of a young starting quarterback that is still trying to find his way through pressure in the pocket.

Texas can take advantage of that by continuing to generate pressure at a high rate. So far this season, Texas was really good at generating pressure, but just had some trouble getting home. But we finally saw Texas get home against a Big 12 foe more than three times last week against Oklahoma.

Moreover, one of the more on-and-off players for Texas this season in the pass rush is sophomore edge rusher Barryn Sorrell. Last weekend against Oklahoma, we only saw Sorrell on the field for 11 defensive snaps. Freshman edge rusher Justice Finkley ate into some of the reps for Sorrell, and he was effective in the process.

But the problem is that senior edge rusher Ovie Oghoufo still wasn’t very effective in the pass rush. This is where I believe that Texas could turn back to Sorrell getting more snaps as a pass rusher. Sorrell got home for 1.5 sacks in the win over the West Virginia Mountaineers.

Texas can also utilize Sorrell off the edge to take advantage of the poor Iowa State offensive tackle play. The worst pass blockers for the Cyclones by far are starting offensive tackles Tyler Miller and Grant Treiber, who have allowed a whopping 30 quarterback pressures and four sacks. Meanwhile, the rest of the offensive line has allowed just 20 quarterback pressures and no sacks.

Get Sorrell involved in some C-gap blitzes to take advantage of the ineffective pass blocking at offensive tackle and tight end and we should see him get the opportunity to get home at least once this weekend.