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OU know it's true: Texas' bitterness is the real McCoy
July 28, 2009
By Dennis Dodd
CBSSports.com Senior Writer
Tell Dennis your opinion!
AUSTIN, Texas -- They're bitter, still, almost eight months later. You would be too if you had a championship snatched away from you by a bunch of faceless voters and soulless computers while your biggest rival tap danced all the way to the BCS title game.
They're bitter, but they're Texas, which changes things. Texas can't complain (much) because it's Texas, the school with the best of everything. Everything except that victory over Texas Tech last season. Twelve-and-one might as well have been 6-6 after the Longhorns lost that infamous three-way tiebreaker in the Big 12 South.
But as we said, they're still upset and they're not holding back as the Big 12 media days continue this week in Dallas. The surprise is source of some of the invective. It's meek, mild, ministerial Colt McCoy. The senior quarterback who would be king -- the Tech loss probably denied him the Heisman and a shot at Florida in the BCS title game -- recently, surprisingly let loose in an interview with CBSSports.com.
When it was suggested that Oklahoma caught a break in riding the tiebreaker to its sixth conference title this decade, McCoy agreed.
"They did," the quarterback said. "They caught a huge break."
That ought to ratchet up the tensions further for what is already the biggest game of the 2009 season -- Texas-Oklahoma in Dallas on Oct. 17. The bitterness has been lingering since Oklahoma edged out Texas by a fraction of a point on Nov. 30. The most contentious "win" in the Red River Rivalry never took place on the field.
Texas won the game in October.
Oklahoma won the battle, as McCoy sees it, with a blizzard of points. "I think people get in their minds that if you score a ton of points, then you're the best team," he said.
That was clearly a shot at the perception that Oklahoma's record-breaking offense caught the voters' and computers' fancy last season. Especially down the stretch, as OU had several woodshed wins over Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Missouri.
While McCoy didn't say it out loud that OU ran it up, he did make the point that Texas didn't. That was obvious watching Mack Brown manage his team down the stretch. In their final three regular-season games, the 'Horns scored 45, 35 and 49. Oklahoma scored at least 61 in five consecutive games leading up to the BCS title match against Florida.
"We could have scored 100 points, probably, in three or four games," McCoy added. "That's not the way we played."
Maybe it's the realization that McCoy's career is drawing to a close. He entered the 2008 season as the team's leading returning rusher. The season ended with McCoy as the Heisman runner-up putting himself in consideration for being Texas' greatest quarterback. With a year to go, McCoy already is the school's career leader in touchdown passes and wins. His 77.6 completion percentage set an NCAA record.
Maybe he's earned the right to respond when it is suggested that Oklahoma got a break last season. The strange thing is, he has a BFF who agrees.
"We did catch a huge break. That's not a secret," Sam Bradford said. "We were fortunate."
That's Sam Bradford, Heisman Trophy winner. Sam Bradford, Oklahoma quarterback. Sam Bradford, who has a -- swallow hard, Sooners and 'Horns -- friendship with McCoy. The two met during the Heisman ceremony and recently worked the Manning family quarterback camp in New Orleans.
"It's something that if you told me five years ago I'd become friends with the quarterback at Texas, I'd probably have looked at you a little strange," Bradford said.
What's next, dogs and cats living together? For a minute there, it looked like the Red River was being drained. Now, back to reality ...
"As a program, you've got to have your standards."
That was Bob Stoops on Nov. 30, taking jabs at Texas moments after the BCS standings spit out the decisive numbers. Texas fans had been seen waving their nationally televised "45-35" placards on ABC's air. That was Texas' winning margin over OU almost two months earlier that launched the controversy. When it became likely that Texas was going to be left out, Texas went to the air, in the form of a plane hired to fly over Boone Pickens Stadium, trailing a banner that read: "45-35, settled on a neutral field."
OU won that night at Oklahoma State 61-41, sewing up the division tiebreaker and sowing the seeds for rancor. By the time Texas-OU kicks off three months from now, we might need an air traffic controller. For the record, Stoops won't be part of effort to hire air support. You've got to have your standards.
Despite the unholy friendship between the quarterbacks, it's on and everyone knows it. For a time, Oklahoma awarded Texas stickers to those who underperformed in workouts.
"If you weren't helping the University of Oklahoma, you were helping the enemy," Sooners tight end Jermaine Gresham said. "If you don't come and can't finish a workout, do things up to par, it had to be a Texas sticker. You were helping Texas today."
Over lunch recently at Posse East in Austin, Mack Brown seemed resigned to 2008 -- and the future. One game decided with one second left kept his team out of the national championship hunt. Texas Tech beat Texas 39-33 on Nov. 1, setting up the tiebreaker.
OU lost to Texas. Texas lost to Texas Tech. Texas Tech lost to Oklahoma. They all finished 7-1 in the conference. The streets of Austin ran read with burnt-orange tears.
"I think I've become disappointed enough in the system that I'm moving on," Brown said. "I'm not letting it affect my ability to enjoy our players and enjoy coaching Texas. ... I get the whiner thing so I just stop."
In other words, que sera, sera?
Fat chance.
"I think that was the second-worst locker room I walked into," Brown said of the Nov. 30 announcement. "The locker room for [former player] Cole Pittman was worse when he died. ...
"We had a meeting at 7:30 p.m. I was so mad. I refused to speak until I got a chance to catch my breath. I sat down to write that little thing that I wrote. The Big 12 didn't like it."
"Since this situation has never happened before in the Big 12, I think the conference should follow the lead of all of the other BCS leagues with championship games (ACC/Conference USA/Mid-American/SEC) in how they settle three-way ties," Brown wrote. "I think their systems are fairer and give more credit to how the two highest ranked teams performed against each other on the field."
The Big 12 stood pat when the spring meetings rolled around. The SEC tiebreaker didn't fly. That would be eliminating the lowest-ranked of three teams and breaking the tie with the head-to-head result of the two remaining teams. Brown was criticized in some circles for not appearing at the spring meetings in Colorado Springs, Colo., to lobby. But he was with his wife, Sally, who was undergoing wrist surgery.
Besides, nothing was going to change. The school with the best of everything wasn't going to get the sympathy vote.
"I've tried to explain this to the kids," Brown said. "We've got a system that allows the conference champion to play in a BCS game. That's all we have. We have nothing else. We have an easy way for Notre Dame to get there. We have an easier way for non-BCS teams to get there. That's it. If they'll just say that and quit talking about the rest."
Brown has tried to figure it out. He invited a handful of the BCS computer gurus to Austin in the offseason. Their explanations were as clear as their formulas are to the public. Brown had Virginia coach Al Groh watch his Fiesta Bowl practices.
"You've got to create an edge, somehow," Groh said. "It's going to be really hard for you to get an edge."
If there is a positive to be gained from those dark days for Texas, it's that the Horns woke up out of their self pity long enough to beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, 24-21. The edge has lingered. Something is smoldering in Austin. You can hear it in McCoy's comments. You can feel it in Brown's final words to his team last November.
"It's done, it's over," he said. "Let's look at what we could have done differently. Beat Tech. That's it. Period. So let's put some of the blame on us.
"The only thing you can do different next year is win all your games."
July 28, 2009
By Dennis Dodd
CBSSports.com Senior Writer
Tell Dennis your opinion!
AUSTIN, Texas -- They're bitter, still, almost eight months later. You would be too if you had a championship snatched away from you by a bunch of faceless voters and soulless computers while your biggest rival tap danced all the way to the BCS title game.
They're bitter, but they're Texas, which changes things. Texas can't complain (much) because it's Texas, the school with the best of everything. Everything except that victory over Texas Tech last season. Twelve-and-one might as well have been 6-6 after the Longhorns lost that infamous three-way tiebreaker in the Big 12 South.
But as we said, they're still upset and they're not holding back as the Big 12 media days continue this week in Dallas. The surprise is source of some of the invective. It's meek, mild, ministerial Colt McCoy. The senior quarterback who would be king -- the Tech loss probably denied him the Heisman and a shot at Florida in the BCS title game -- recently, surprisingly let loose in an interview with CBSSports.com.
When it was suggested that Oklahoma caught a break in riding the tiebreaker to its sixth conference title this decade, McCoy agreed.
"They did," the quarterback said. "They caught a huge break."
That ought to ratchet up the tensions further for what is already the biggest game of the 2009 season -- Texas-Oklahoma in Dallas on Oct. 17. The bitterness has been lingering since Oklahoma edged out Texas by a fraction of a point on Nov. 30. The most contentious "win" in the Red River Rivalry never took place on the field.
Texas won the game in October.
Oklahoma won the battle, as McCoy sees it, with a blizzard of points. "I think people get in their minds that if you score a ton of points, then you're the best team," he said.
That was clearly a shot at the perception that Oklahoma's record-breaking offense caught the voters' and computers' fancy last season. Especially down the stretch, as OU had several woodshed wins over Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Missouri.
While McCoy didn't say it out loud that OU ran it up, he did make the point that Texas didn't. That was obvious watching Mack Brown manage his team down the stretch. In their final three regular-season games, the 'Horns scored 45, 35 and 49. Oklahoma scored at least 61 in five consecutive games leading up to the BCS title match against Florida.
"We could have scored 100 points, probably, in three or four games," McCoy added. "That's not the way we played."
Maybe it's the realization that McCoy's career is drawing to a close. He entered the 2008 season as the team's leading returning rusher. The season ended with McCoy as the Heisman runner-up putting himself in consideration for being Texas' greatest quarterback. With a year to go, McCoy already is the school's career leader in touchdown passes and wins. His 77.6 completion percentage set an NCAA record.
Maybe he's earned the right to respond when it is suggested that Oklahoma got a break last season. The strange thing is, he has a BFF who agrees.
"We did catch a huge break. That's not a secret," Sam Bradford said. "We were fortunate."
That's Sam Bradford, Heisman Trophy winner. Sam Bradford, Oklahoma quarterback. Sam Bradford, who has a -- swallow hard, Sooners and 'Horns -- friendship with McCoy. The two met during the Heisman ceremony and recently worked the Manning family quarterback camp in New Orleans.
"It's something that if you told me five years ago I'd become friends with the quarterback at Texas, I'd probably have looked at you a little strange," Bradford said.
What's next, dogs and cats living together? For a minute there, it looked like the Red River was being drained. Now, back to reality ...
"As a program, you've got to have your standards."
That was Bob Stoops on Nov. 30, taking jabs at Texas moments after the BCS standings spit out the decisive numbers. Texas fans had been seen waving their nationally televised "45-35" placards on ABC's air. That was Texas' winning margin over OU almost two months earlier that launched the controversy. When it became likely that Texas was going to be left out, Texas went to the air, in the form of a plane hired to fly over Boone Pickens Stadium, trailing a banner that read: "45-35, settled on a neutral field."
OU won that night at Oklahoma State 61-41, sewing up the division tiebreaker and sowing the seeds for rancor. By the time Texas-OU kicks off three months from now, we might need an air traffic controller. For the record, Stoops won't be part of effort to hire air support. You've got to have your standards.
Despite the unholy friendship between the quarterbacks, it's on and everyone knows it. For a time, Oklahoma awarded Texas stickers to those who underperformed in workouts.
"If you weren't helping the University of Oklahoma, you were helping the enemy," Sooners tight end Jermaine Gresham said. "If you don't come and can't finish a workout, do things up to par, it had to be a Texas sticker. You were helping Texas today."
Over lunch recently at Posse East in Austin, Mack Brown seemed resigned to 2008 -- and the future. One game decided with one second left kept his team out of the national championship hunt. Texas Tech beat Texas 39-33 on Nov. 1, setting up the tiebreaker.
OU lost to Texas. Texas lost to Texas Tech. Texas Tech lost to Oklahoma. They all finished 7-1 in the conference. The streets of Austin ran read with burnt-orange tears.
"I think I've become disappointed enough in the system that I'm moving on," Brown said. "I'm not letting it affect my ability to enjoy our players and enjoy coaching Texas. ... I get the whiner thing so I just stop."
In other words, que sera, sera?
Fat chance.
"I think that was the second-worst locker room I walked into," Brown said of the Nov. 30 announcement. "The locker room for [former player] Cole Pittman was worse when he died. ...
"We had a meeting at 7:30 p.m. I was so mad. I refused to speak until I got a chance to catch my breath. I sat down to write that little thing that I wrote. The Big 12 didn't like it."
"Since this situation has never happened before in the Big 12, I think the conference should follow the lead of all of the other BCS leagues with championship games (ACC/Conference USA/Mid-American/SEC) in how they settle three-way ties," Brown wrote. "I think their systems are fairer and give more credit to how the two highest ranked teams performed against each other on the field."
The Big 12 stood pat when the spring meetings rolled around. The SEC tiebreaker didn't fly. That would be eliminating the lowest-ranked of three teams and breaking the tie with the head-to-head result of the two remaining teams. Brown was criticized in some circles for not appearing at the spring meetings in Colorado Springs, Colo., to lobby. But he was with his wife, Sally, who was undergoing wrist surgery.
Besides, nothing was going to change. The school with the best of everything wasn't going to get the sympathy vote.
"I've tried to explain this to the kids," Brown said. "We've got a system that allows the conference champion to play in a BCS game. That's all we have. We have nothing else. We have an easy way for Notre Dame to get there. We have an easier way for non-BCS teams to get there. That's it. If they'll just say that and quit talking about the rest."
Brown has tried to figure it out. He invited a handful of the BCS computer gurus to Austin in the offseason. Their explanations were as clear as their formulas are to the public. Brown had Virginia coach Al Groh watch his Fiesta Bowl practices.
"You've got to create an edge, somehow," Groh said. "It's going to be really hard for you to get an edge."
If there is a positive to be gained from those dark days for Texas, it's that the Horns woke up out of their self pity long enough to beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, 24-21. The edge has lingered. Something is smoldering in Austin. You can hear it in McCoy's comments. You can feel it in Brown's final words to his team last November.
"It's done, it's over," he said. "Let's look at what we could have done differently. Beat Tech. That's it. Period. So let's put some of the blame on us.
"The only thing you can do different next year is win all your games."
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