Colby Sorsdal wanted his last season at William & Mary to be a memorable one, but with a new offensive line coach and four new starters on the offensive line, Sorsdal knew he had to do his part to make that happen.
So Sorsdal, the Detroit Lions’ fifth-round pick in last week’s NFL draft, set out last summer to shrink the learning curve for the Tribe’s offensive line.
He joined his teammates for weight room and conditioning workouts from 6-8 a.m. every morning, spent most of the next nine hours working as a sort of unpaid graduate assistant, showing recruits around campus, drawing up plays on Microsoft Visio and putting together film cut-ups of William & Mary’s fall opponents, then he hit the football field at 5 p.m. to lead his line and the rest of the offense through a mini practice.
Sorsdal, along with his roommate, Marcus Crowell, led individual drills and walked players through offensive installs that had the Tribe far ahead of where they would have otherwise been when they opened fall practice.
“You hear like (author and ex-Navy SEAL) Jocko Willink talk about the extreme ownership, and that’s kind of the mindset of it,” William & Mary offensive line coach Mario Acitelli told the Free Press on Wednesday. “Like, ‘OK, what do we have to do?’ This is what we have to do. ‘OK, I’m going to figure out how to do it.’ I think it just speaks to his – he’s not a passive person. He’ll do whatever is necessary, whatever he can to help get whatever results are desired. So I think that’s a perfect example of that.”
William & Mary finished 11-2 last season and made the FCS playoffs for the first time in seven years, and Sorsdal’s role in his team’s success was noted by NFL teams during the draft process.
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The Tribe ranked third nationally in rushing (265.8 ypg) and allowed the fourth fewest sacks per game (0.77), with Sorsdal anchoring the line at right tackle and serving as one of William & Mary’s captains.
He finished his college career with 46 starts over five seasons, including the spring season of 2021 during COVID, and was a first-team FCS All-American last fall.
“The changes to his body physically over, again, especially the last two years have been very good,” Acitelli said. “So it’s of course helped his game in a lot of ways. I think he’s had three different offensive line coaches in his five years at William & Mary. And all of us — well, one is now passed away, but all three of us knew each other, so there’s some similarities for sure. But for him to be able to continue to develop as a player despite having different coaches it’s just again, how hard he works to get his stuff right.”
Acitelli helped lure Sorsdal to William & Mary after seeing the offensive lineman take part in the Pitt football camp before his senior season of high school.
Sorsdal started 10 games as a freshman and had his ups and downs competing against much older competition, but steadily improved over his first four seasons to the point where Acitelli said Sorsdal would have “gotten some pretty big-time offers” had he decided to enter the transfer portal last spring.
At William & Mary, Sorsdal played in the most zone-heavy rushing scheme in the nation. Acitelli said the Tribe ran wide zone on roughly 70% of their plays, often using Sorsdal as their primary blocker.
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“We did some counter, so he got the ability to pull and double team on deuces and things like that, too,” Acitelli said. “And he was really, really good at double teams. We got a lot of movement running to his side. But I’ll say this, running wide zone it’s always two things: Can you stretch the front side and can you cut off the back side? That’s always the issue. And he was powerful enough and quick enough to be able to threaten in somebody’s edge and then stretch them and get tons of movement on the front side, and also agile enough to cut off somebody inside of him when we’re running the ball the other way.
“Being able to do both things is pretty rare, and then for us to be able to do it at our level is very rare. So his athletic ability combined with his power was huge for us, but that initial quickness that he has, his twitch as we like to say, very high. And that’s what he was best at.”
Sorsdal, who played last season at 315 pounds, had a strong showing at the East-West Shrine all-star game, though Acitelli said the Lions and most other teams showed interest in Sorsdal during the season.
Now 6 feet 5 and 304 pounds, Sorsdal projects as a backup for the Lions this fall, though it’s unclear if he will stay at right tackle or move to guard because of his arm length (33 inches).
Acitelli said he believes Sorsdal could be an effective NFL player at either position. The Lions have a longer-term need at guard, where Jonah Jackson, Graham Glasgow and Halapoulivaati Vaitai are all scheduled to play this season on expiring contracts.
“I certainly think he’s a physical enough kid to play guard,” Acitelli said. “And then the other aspect of guard that I think goes unsaid a lot of times in the media is just how quickly things change inside, how you have to react so quickly. This guy goes over there so now I’m working to this guy instead of that guy, or whatever. I think mentally he would be able to handle that very well, without a doubt.
“I would guess that’s probably the best spot for him, but I don’t know. That’s not up to me. If the Lions want it to be up to me, that’s another deal. I can come in there and help. But no, I think he is physical enough to play inside. I know he’ll attack, whatever job they give him he will attack and try and be the best at it.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.