We' re beginning to suspect the actual existence of a player named "Colt McCoy" at Texas. We know he has his Rivals page, his own scholarship...hell, he's probably got doctored social security cards and a passport, to boot. But as if the central casting cowboy name didn't trip your credibility wires already, there's this bit from Joe Schad's column: he loves AC/DC ($), a jarring contrast to Vince Young's big pimpin' rap beats that got them bouncing on the practice field last year. The quote, for which we owe the Worldwide Leader 0.05 cents, by our calculations:
We get it. What players say is they'll need McCoy and Snead to gain a comfort level that allows them -- at least one of them -- to become the spiritual leader that Vince Young was. But at Texas, upperclassmen rule. And as Selvin Young told me, "Vince got this title run started with rap music and dancing on the practice field. And that's not gonna change." Not yet, anyway.
Colt's jam. Not Bankhead Bounce compatible.
Hmm...we see a script here. Rather than go through the obvious drama of replacing Vince Young the organic way--letting the qbs fight things out--Texas has taken a page from The Program and wisely sketched out the thing in the form of a script. A brooding, cocky loner with a cowboy's last name (we could call him something like...Buck McStallion, or Spur Tackley, or even Colt McCoy) rides into the Texas program and starts rubbing people the wrong way with his loud rock and roll music and brash ways. There's a slo-mo loss in the rain to a rival (Oklahoma? Sure-) where Spur--er, Colt--gives away a crucial fumble and earns some pine time, yielding to a guy with an equally made up ethnically-appropriate name ("Jevan Snead" sounds good.)
Colt fumes, has a fight with his blonde girlfriend, and hits rock bottom in a scene where he drinks straight from what is obviously a Jack Daniels bottle and wanders the streets of the college town, thinking about his cold, steel-weldin' daddy to the tune of a mournful ballad. (Think Team America, minus the minute and a half of convulsive puppet vomiting.)
All of this comes full circle when "Snead" injures himself before a critical game to ice the conference championship (A&M) and pushes Colt back in the spotlight. McCoy summons the team to his locker, where he performs an endearingly white Bankhead Bounce with a pegleg cowboy thrown in to endear himself to his teammates. Newly appreciative of their maturing teammate (an evening spent stumbling around drunk and thinking about your shitty family usually does this to movie qbs,) the team goes out and beats their rival on a last second goal-line naked bootleg run by "Colt McCoy" himself.
Brown's strategy here is brilliant; rather than have a crisis of succession, you just script it out to avoid any surprises. Brilliant! Just one thing though: the name Colt McCoy. It's got to go. No one will believe it; I mean, why don't you just call him Jim Bob Cooter? Or Tim Tebow? Or Joe Kane, for chrissakes?
Joe--I mean, Colt--make it happen out there!