MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A talented Texas team coming off its best performance of the season last Saturday at Oklahoma State awaits West Virginia this Saturday in Austin.
 
The Longhorns (4-2) won their second overtime game of the year in Stillwater by outlasting the sixth-ranked Cowboys 41-34.
 
Quarterback Sam Ehlinger overcame a rough start to throw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jake Smith giving the Longhorns at late lead, and then he won the game in overtime when he hooked up with Joshua Moore for a 15-yard scoring aerial.
 
"They have been a group that plays really well from behind," coach Neal Brown, now 9-9 in two seasons at West Virginia, said earlier this week.
 
Statistically, Ehlinger wasn't great against the Cowboys, the senior completed just 18-of-34 passes for 169 yards while rushing 13 times for minus-9 yards, but his numbers this year have put him on pace for becoming one of the most productive quarterbacks in Big 12 Conference history.
 
The Austin, Texas, resident recently moved into the top five in conference history in most touchdowns responsible for with 120, and he needs only seven more to move past Oklahoma's Landry Jones in fourth place with 126.
 
"He's a guy that just comes off to me as a winner," Brown said. "He's got some mental toughness about him. He's got some charisma to where guys follow him and when you have that type of personality, combined with the talent he has, guys are going to follow him." 
 
Ehlinger has a good shot of passing Colt McCoy's school-record 132 touchdowns produced during his career that ended in 2009, and he will likely finish his career with the second-most passing yards in UT history with 10,520 heading into Saturday's game against West Virginia.
 
McCoy owns that record with 13,253 yards passing.
 
Ehlinger has performed well in his three career games against West Virginia by leading the Longhorns to victories in 2017 and 2019.
 
Statistically, his best effort came in the 2018 shootout when WVU rallied in the fourth quarter to claim a 42-41 victory. Ehlinger completed 25-of-36 passes for 354 yards and three touchdowns while running 11 times for 52 yards and a score.
 
In last year's 42-31 win at Milan Puskar Stadium, it was Ehlinger's pair of rushing touchdowns that gave Texas the fourth-quarter boost it needed to pull out its 11-point victory.
 
Ehlinger has passed for 701 yards and seven touchdowns while running 29 times for 165 yards and three scores against the Mountaineers.
 
This year, he is completing 60.3% of his 219 pass attempts for 1,650 yards and 20 touchdowns while also leading the Longhorn rushing attack with 284 yards and seven touchdowns on 78 attempts.
 
"Ehlinger is a winner," Brown noted. "I love watching him play, and I love watching him compete."
 
The team's second-leading rusher, Keaontay Ingram, is out for Saturday's game after suffering a high ankle sprain in the Oklahoma State win, which means Roschon Johnson (192 yards) and Bijan Robinson (181 yards) are expected to get most of the running back carries on Saturday.
 
Brown believes the Longhorns' receivers corps could be the deepest and most talented his young secondary will face this year. Sophomore Joshua Moore leads the Longhorns with 22 catches for 343 yards and seven touchdowns, which leads the Big 12.
 
Defensively, Texas has one of the premier players in the Big 12 in junior jack linebacker Joseph Ossai, a 6-foot-4, 253-pounder. Ossai logged a career-high 12 tackles, six tackles for loss, three sacks and forced a fumble in last Saturday's Oklahoma State win to capture national defensive player of the week honors.
 
He has already racked up 46 tackles, 12 ½ tackles for loss, four sacks, three forced fumbles and two pass breakups in just six games this season.
 
"He's special," Brown said of Ossai. "He's probably as good of a defender as anyone in our league. His stats are off the charts, and he really jumps out. He's got great ball get-off, he's long and he's probably an early-round draft pick for sure. We've got to know where he's at."
 
Brown also complimented the play of safety Cade Sterns, a 6-foot-1, 207-pound junior.
 
"I think he's special in the back end," Brown said.
 
Texas has one of the most dangerous returners in the Big 12 in 5-foot-10, 184-pound junior D'Shawn Jamison, who returned a kickoff for a touchdown last Saturday against Oklahoma State and had another returned called back because of a penalty. He has accounted for a combined 254 yards in kickoff and punt returns.
 
"He does a very good job having a vertical mentality in the punt return game," Brown said.
 
The punting chores are handled by Australian Ryan Bujcevski, who is averaging 43.2 yards per punt, while Cameron Dicker is taking care of the place kicking responsibilities. Dicker has made eight of 10 field goal attempts and has also generated 38 touchbacks on 42 kickoffs so far this season.
 
Veteran Texas coach Tom Herman said Tuesday he believes his team is finally beginning to jell following the offseason additions of offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and defensive coordinator Chris Ash.
 
Mountaineer fans will remember Yurcich's offenses at Oklahoma State while working for Mike Gundy, while Ash, a former Rutgers head coach, has had defensive coordinator stops at Ohio State, Arkansas and Wisconsin. His defenses have long been known for producing turnovers.
 
Oklahoma State coughed up the football four times last Saturday and turnovers also played a key role in West Virginia's loss to Texas last year. In that game, Austin Kendall, Jarret Doege's backup this year, passed for a career-high 367 yards but was picked off four times.
 
T.J. Simmons led the WVU receiver corps with seven catches for 135 yards, while running backs Kennedy McKoy and Leddie Brown had tough times finding room to run the football.
 
Brown enters Saturday's game ranked sixth nationally in total touchdowns (10), eighth in rushing yardage (694) and 16^thin all-purpose yardage (143.3 ypg.).
 
Doege is now seventh nationally in completions per game (24.8), 12^th in passing yardage (1,690) and 17^th in touchdown passes (11).
 
Texas has accumulated a Big 12-best 77 takeaways since 2017 while committing the second-fewest turnovers (51) during the same period of time.
 
Herman also points to his defense limiting Oklahoma State to just 10 second half points and holding tailback Chuba Hubbard to just 72 yards on 25 carries. He said a big defensive line is one of the team's emerging strengths, with lots of depth at the inside position.
 
Brown said Texas' defensive line will be the biggest his offensive line has faced this season.
 
"They create takeaways and negative plays in every game," Brown said of the Longhorn defense. "The negative plays they created last week was really impressive."
 
The two teams will be meeting for the 10^th time including the sixth in Austin where West Virginia owns a 4-1 record. The Mountaineers have been one of the more successful teams at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, where Herman's four-year record there is 15-6, including a 12-3 mark over the past three seasons.
 
The winner of Saturday's game will remain in the hunt for a berth into the 2020 Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship to be played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the third weekend in December.
 
"I have a ton of respect for Texas and the history of that program," Brown said. "I think it's a great experience for our guys to go to Austin and play in that stadium that has so much tradition."
 
Texas shows wins over UTEP (59-3), Texas Tech (63-56), Baylor (27-16) and Oklahoma State (41-34) and losses to TCU (33-31) and Oklahoma (53-45). Half of the Longhorns' six games this year has been overtime affairs.
 
West Virginia (4-2) shows wins over Eastern Kentucky (56-10), Baylor (27-21), Kansas (38-17) and Kansas State (37-10), and losses at Oklahoma State (27-13) and at Texas Tech (34-27).
 
Saturday's game will kick off at noon EST and will be televised nationally on ABC (Joe Tessitore, Greg McElroy and Holly Rowe).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG radio coverage will begin at 8:30 a.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 11 a.m.