MORE COLT
By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas
Colt McCoy is approaching 210 pounds, say those who saw him at the public drills this past weekend in Austin.
Most of that is all muscle, as McCoy tries to make sure all those nerves from his shoulders upwards will be well-protected by next fall. The photo to the right from mackbrown-texasfootball.com clearly illustrates a beefier QB. His "official" weight on that site is now 205, up 10 pounds from last season.
"Overall, I'm just trying to get bigger, faster and stronger," McCoy told Suzanne Halliburton of the Austin American-Statesman Friday after the two-hour workout. "I needed to spend time in the weight room."
Conventional wisdom states that redshirt freshman Sherrod Harris of Arlington and/or freshman John Chiles of Dallas will get more playing time early next season whenever the Longhorns build an insurmountable lead, so that in case of another injury to McCoy, they'll be ready to step in.
Mack Brown no doubt gets reminded regularly of the final two games of the regular season: "What we've got to do first is to find a second- and third-team quarterback. Because when Colt got hurt, we put Jevan (Snead) in and we wished he had more playing time."
I'm sure Brown will get critized for various things throughout next season, but I doubt if he will let one of those subjects be that the backup quarterbacks aren't ready to play.
Supposedly, redshirt freshman receiver Montre Webber of Hearne made the most spectacular play of the weekend drills on a long pass from Harris. More good news for McCoy.
And speaking of quarterbacks, you probably already know Southlake Carroll's signal caller Riley Dodge (photo from Rivals.com) has verbally committed to UT. He's a junior, so expect him to lead the Dragons to another Class 5A state championship before he signs on the dotted line on Feb. 6, 2008.
COLT SPRING QUOTES (from mackbrown-texasfootball.com)
On if this is a bigger, stronger Colt McCoy: I need to be; I am tired of getting thrown around. I don’t want to get hurt again. I’ve spent a lot of time in the weight room, but everybody has. We’re having fun, and I thought we looked pretty good today.
On how John Chiles and Sherrod Harris are doing: They are both doing really well. Sherrod is working really hard, and he worked really hard his redshirt year. He knows the offense and John is a really good athlete coming in and he is trying to compete.
On what he hopes to accomplish this spring: We just have to come together as a team. We have to know each other and how each person plays; develop some mesh with each other, and we’ll be fine. That’s what the spring is all about -- to see who is going to show up and who is going to play.
On the first day of practice: It was fun to finally get back out there. It was pretty windy so the ball was moving. You really didn’t know where it was going. To get out there and to play with your teammates and develop relationships; it was fun.
On how he feels right now: I walked out and told Coach Brown that I’m definitely not as nervous this spring. We’re excited. We want to get better. I know all the players, and I know everything about our offense and now it’s just taking it to the next level.
On how having Jamaal Charles for the whole spring will help: It's going to help a lot. We’re going to develop our timing and we’re going to get our running game down. We’ll find ways to get him the ball, because he’s a great player.
On how much help he is going to be giving Chiles and Harris: A lot, they’re going to need help. We need to have someone else who is ready to play and Sherrod and John, I think they’re both going to do well this spring. Today was the first day and you can’t really see much, but they’re doing really well.