Colt McCoy is no doubt a big fan of the hit TV series “Friday Night Lights.” He should be. It’s not only filmed in Austin, it could be the story of his prep career — minus, of course, the beatings by the fictional quarterback’s father and teammates frequenting strip joints.
He loves reruns. Who wouldn’t want to see another episode of the snubbed Heisman candidate going into the Rose Bowl as an underdog and torching the best team in the land for the national championship?
Too schlocky? Too Hollywood? Hey, it can happen. It did happen.
Four years ago, on the same field where McCoy’s second-ranked Texas Longhorns will face top-ranked Alabama on Thursday, Texas quarterback Vince Young went Oscar ceremony on USC.
The second-ranked, unbeaten Longhorns, 10-point underdogs, toppled college football’s version of Godzilla, 41-38. All Young did was pass for 267 yards and rush for 200 more, including the winning 8-yard TD run with 19 seconds left, to end USC’s 34-game winning streak.
On the other side of the field, tailback Reggie Bush had to watch as his Heisman runner-up turned him into a footnote.
It’s four years later and Young’s successor couldn’t be in more similar shoes if Nike’s Phil Knight personally fitted them. McCoy finished third in the Heisman, won by Alabama’s Mark Ingram, and the unbeaten Longhorns are underdogs, this time against an Alabama team many are already fitting for the crown.
A warning to the Crimson Tide: McCoy redshirted that 2005 season. He was on the sideline and picked up a few things from Young.
“He was a great leader,” McCoy said on a recent conference call. “He had the respect of all of his teammates and everybody wanted the ball in his hands at the end of the game, or in crunch time. When somebody had to make a play, everybody looked to him.
“I think that’s the similarity from this year. I love being in that position. I thrive in that type of thing.”
That bronze statue also offers another tantalizing similarity. Did Ingram really deserve the Heisman? He beat Stanford’s Toby Gerhart in the closest voting in history, and McCoy wasn’t far behind.
Last season McCoy finished second to Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford. McCoy knows he looks lousy in a bridesmaid’s dress.
“I thought it was very important to him,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “Last year he was very disappointed. I think when he walked in last year he thought he was going to win it. This year he wasn’t sure. There were some question marks in Texas of whether Vince Young should’ve won it when Reggie won it.”
Young had one advantage over McCoy in his final college appearance. USC’s defense hit like a fleet of Buicks but they gave up a lot of yards. Those Trojans finished 48th nationally in total defense at 360.92 yards a game. Fresno State scored 42 on them. At home.
This season’s Crimson Tide has given up fewer points than any team in America, 11 a game. The Tide is second overall in total defense (241.69) and rush defense (77.92) and first in pass-efficiency defense (88.81).
Against the two best defenses Texas has faced this season, Oklahoma and Nebraska, the Longhorns scored a total of two touchdowns. McCoy’s three interceptions against Nebraska probably cost him the Heisman.
“They’re very similar defenses,” Brown said of Nebraska and Alabama. “Nebraska had four really good guys up front, and Alabama has four or five. They’re deep.”
Like Young, though, McCoy has carried this team through 13 consecutive wins and did it without a great running game. He said the bitterness of last season’s BCS snub still burns in the heart of every Longhorn.
McCoy is a much better quarterback than he is an actor, but don’t be surprised if he pulls off a dramatic performance Thursday on national TV. It’d be the best rerun he ever saw.
