Colt McCoy – Quarterback for the Texas Longhorns

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

If you were watching the Louisville/West Virginia game on ESPN last night you heard at halftime that Colt won his second Cingular ESPN All-America Player of the Game award for his methodical and effective leadership of the Longhorns out of the ashes of the first half at Lubbock.

He also won that prestigious national award for his great effort against Baylor a couple of weeks ago - does 6 TD passes ring a bell? Speaking of ringtones, doesn't "Cingular ESPN All-America Player of the YEAR" have a nice ring to it? No one else has won two so far this season, and maybe - just maybe - you remember which quarterback in burnt orange won that award last season. UT's Cedric Benson won the inaugural national award in 2004. Three for three anyone?

For those of you who haven't been keeping count, Colt has also been named "Player of the Game" all 6 times UT has been nationally or regionally televised this season - even in the Ohio State loss.

I don't think the TV cameras bother him.

That brings us to today's sermon. Please turn to Proverbs, chapter whatever. I'm sure there must be something in there about believing your own pub.

Probably not, but that's where a lot of individuals or teams fall - when they start believing their own publicity - buying into the feel-good hype surrounding their success.

I believe that's what happened to the Mountaineers. You, me and the other guy thought West Virginia would take that game last night. Nope. Turned out to be not even close.

You can probably think of a faltering team from your own past experience - preps, college or pro. It just happens. It's hard to win week in and week out, not matter how good you are.

Eventually, you let the off-field, distracting glow of praise seep into your gameday brain.

Brad and Debra McCoy didn't raise such a foolish boy.

Judging by what I saw in high school, if Colt has a bad game, it won't be because he's gone all "Hollywood" in the head - counting on his mental fingers how many weekly awards he's received. It'll be because he came up against a defense that took him off his game and beat him at that game.

And on second thought, that's what happened to West Virginia last night. Louisville was ready to make a little pub of its own, and they played like it.

The Longhorns probably already realize Oklahoma State is feeling the same way coming into Austin this weekend.