A fun and lively debate in the summer was whether Bruce Irvin should be taken seriously. Was he a star in the making or was he a guy who was projected to be good just because he was new and fast and intriguing in that WVU hadn’t had anyone like him in a while?

Well, he has 10 sacks now, which hadn’t been done at WVU since 1998, and he’s taken a simple approach to it all.

“It’s pretty easy,” Irvin said. “They can’t drop back as fast as I can run forward.”

There you have it. But seriously, let’s revisit this topic for a moment because there are different schools of thought.

Only five other players in the country have 10 or more sacks this season and no one in the Big East can best Irvin’s average of 1.0 per game. Clearly, he’s made a difference. Yet I do wonder what people think of him, what he’s done and how it’s happened.

Pitt’s Brandon Lindsey and Jabaal Sheard, as an example, have 10 and nine sacks, respectively. They are basically every-down players. You can say they have more opportunities than Irvin, but you could also say they’re subjected to greater attention and more tactics to prevent their damage, which makes the damage they inflict worth that much more.

Irvin, though, is a specialist. He come in for pass-rush situations … though he did play a number of second downs against Louisville. One might say Irvin has essentially maxed out a gimmick. Another might say that’s his job and for that he should be congratulated.

He is, once more, a topic for discussion. That it’s this late in the season and about a matter like this, as opposed to, say, “What happened to that Irvin guy from August?” is commendable.

At the worst, know that, as far as the NCAA is concerned, he’s joined the very exclusive One-Name Club.