KANSAS CITY, MO. — No hard feelings, Texas junior quarterback Colt McCoy said Wednesday when asked if he looked forward to seeing Colorado freshman running back Darrell Scott when the Longhorns visit Boulder on Oct. 4.
McCoy served as one of the hosts when the blue-chipper made an official visit to Austin before signing with CU in February.
“Sure, I’ll say hello to him,” McCoy said during the final day of the Big 12 football preview. “I showed him around. He was down here for awhile. It’s fun to keep in touch with those guys that you meet on recruiting trips, guys that go to different schools.”
Scott, 6-feet-2 and 215 pounds, was recruited by dozens of schools but ultimately narrowed his choices to Colorado and Texas. He rushed for 2,433 yards and 33 touchdowns as a senior at Ventura (Calif.) St. Bonaventure and was ranked as high as the nation’s No. 2 high school prospect for all positions by Internet recruiting sites.
“I’m sure Darrell knew in the back of his mind where he wanted to go; that’s great for Colorado,” McCoy said. “I’m sure he’ll do great there. I hope for the best.”
McCoy said CU’s victory over Oklahoma in Boulder last fall caught the attention of Texas players.
“We understand how important it is to play well up there, how tough it is,” McCoy said. “It could be a little bit chilly. The altitude may affect things a little bit. But Colorado is a good team. I’ve watched some film on them already. They’re tough. It’s going to be a dogfight up there.”
The Oct. 4 will be the conference opener for both teams.
Not a center of attention
As a former Fort Collins High School star, Oklahoma senior center Jon Cooper knew he’d get some phone calls and text messages from some old pals who wanted to rub it in after the Sooners’ loss at CU last season.
He was braced for the worst.
“Yeah, I heard about it quite a bit,” Cooper said. “But at least most of my friends took it easy on me for awhile. They know I really don’t like losing. They let it settle for a little bit.
“I still hear about it. But we’ve got the ring (for the Big 12 championship), so it’s OK.”
Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops calls Cooper, a 6-foot-2, 285-pounder, the most underrated and overlooked player on the Sooners offensive line. Cooper earned the starting job as a true freshman (before suffering a compound leg fracture) and has been in the lineup ever since.
“It’s just that Jon may not be fun to talk about because he isn’t 6-7, 340,” Stoops said. “He’s very consistent, a very good player. He’s intelligent and plays with great leverage and technique.”
Surprisingly, Cooper failed to even earn honorable-mention all-conference for 2007 in voting by the Big 12 coaches. Coaches are prohibited from voting for their players, otherwise Stoops might have put Cooper at the top of his list.
“I don’t expect to get the attention,” Cooper said. “I don’t want it. I’ll let them have it. They deserve everything they get. That’s perfectly fine with me.”
Road less traveled
It’s a wonder new Baylor coach Art Briles didn’t arrive at the Big 12 football preview wearing a coonskin cap. Briles knows the journey will be tough, in taking over a program that has never compiled a winning Big 12 record. But he embraces the challenge.
“I like to walk down paths nobody else wants to walk down,” said Briles, a 1979 Texas Tech graduate who went 34-28 in five years at the University of Houston. “I want pioneers. I want people that are not afraid to step out there and go. It’s easy to walk down a path that’s clear and pristine and you know it’s just perfect. Our path’s not that way. We have to sell faith, hope and adventure.”
Winning in college football is as much a frame of mind as it is talent, Briles said.
“There’s eight or 10 teams in America that could probably walk out every Saturday and win 95 percent of their football games,” he said. “The other 110 after that, there’s quite a bit of parity.”
Giving the ‘Net a bad name
Stoops was pleased to hear that the Daily Oklahoman newspaper has filed suit against the Internet poster from Austin who wrote an erroneous story about Sooners quarterbacks Sam Bradford and Landry Jones being arrested for distributing cocaine.
The Internet poster took the Daily Oklahoman’s webpage format and used the byline of a sports reporter on the Daily Oklahoman staff.
“It’s sad,” Stoops said. “I read the guy’s comment that he didn’t mean to hurt anybody. Well, what did he think would happen? Those (two players) are as good a young men as you’ll ever find.”
Footnotes
Second-year Iowa State coach Gene Chizik called the Cyclones’ 31-28 victory over Colorado a “turning point” for his program. “The Colorado game … we were down 21 at halftime and were able to scratch and claw our way back,” Chizik said. “That’s hard to do in this league. I think our players understand now that you don’t look at the scoreboard, you keep going, that small victories (in individual one-on-one battles on the field) turn into big victories.”
… OU coach Bob Stoops said running back DeMarco Murray’s surgically repaired knee “is on schedule and he looks great.” Murray dislocated a kneecap against Texas Tech.
… Asked how long he will coach, Texas’ Mack Brown said, “As long as I’m healthy and as long as we’re doing the job that’s best of the University of Texas. Very honestly, after my knee (replacement), it’s been like a miracle for me. I feel so much better than I’ve felt for 15 years.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
