Texas' Colt McCoy keeps it simple
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Longhorns' quarterback leads a small-town life while leading a big-time program. He doesn't drink but his numbers are smokin', in an offense tailored (and, yes, simplified) for his skill set.
Reporting from Austin, Texas — Not so long ago, a group of sportswriters wanted to know whether Colt McCoy drank.
"Yes," he told them. "But only milk and water."
Turns out the Texas quarterback had recently given up Dr. Pepper. His coach, Mack Brown, chuckles at the story.
"They thought he was putting them on," Brown recalls. "He really wasn't."
After three seasons of big-time college football, McCoy still has a whole lot of small town in him. The T-shirt and blue jeans with a ball cap tugged down over his head. The soft twang in his words.
And that's a big reason for his success.
There is something basic and essential about the way McCoy has rebounded from the disappointment of last season, guiding the third-ranked Longhorns into the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State tonight.
"He's as good as there is," Buckeyes Coach Jim Tressel says. "He's just put up extraordinary numbers."
The kind of numbers that rank McCoy among the best passers in the nation. A once-scrawny recruit, he has added enough muscle to lead Texas in rushing, too.
The young man from Tuscola, Texas, doesn't like to make a big deal about his statistics or anything else, really. He says: "I haven't tried to do too much."
But that's exactly the point.
Every buzzard's luck
In many ways, the journey from Tuscola -- population 725, just south of Abilene -- was farther than miles could measure.
McCoy arrived at a college campus far more populous than his hometown. He was playing football for someone other than his father, Brad, the coach back at tiny Jim Ned High.
"I was going to get yelled at and screamed at," he said. "I could take it from my dad, but I'd never heard that from anyone else."
Through the fall of 2005, with the Longhorns on their way to a national championship, McCoy shadowed star quarterback Vince Young from film room to meetings to practice field, watching and learning.
This apprenticeship figured to continue in 2006 with Young returning as a senior and his understudy playing in mop-up situations, gaining experience.
That plan changed in a hurry when Young left school early for the NFL. McCoy was thrust into the leading role as a redshirt freshman, asked to follow perhaps the greatest athlete in Texas history. Even now, he shakes his head at the thought.
"That's tough," he said. "That's really tough."
