Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

To set the scene: Dec. 1st, 2001, Texas had inexplicably earned a shot at the BigXII championship, and even more inexplicably a certain birth in the national championship. The planets had aligned for the first time since 1969, and we were ready. Here is the chain of events that led up to this scenario. Click on the link above to see who was being predicted to go to the BCS bowls, as well as the conference championship games just 3 weeks earlier. It began with our usual loss to Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout. That usually takes us out of BigXII title contention. The BigXII matchup was expected to be this: Nebraska vs. OU, with the winner going to play Miami in the Rose Bowl. Then Colorado ROLLED Nebraska, with Chris Brown running for 6 TD's, taking the 'Huskers out of the picture. Then, a week or so later, OSU ROLLED OU, thus taking OU out of national title contention because of an earlier loss to Texas A&M. This puts a 1 loss Texas team in the Big XII title game.
Now, on the SEC side, we had a 1 loss Florida team, by way of all of the previously mentioned upsets, sitting comfortably at No. 2 in the BCS standings, needing just 2 wins to cement their place in the Rose Bowl. Enter 1 loss Tennessee, facing off against Florida in their annual meeting. Tennessee had been getting dominated since the Peyton years, and was a heavy underdog in this game, and guess what? They win. This gives Florida 2 losses, and drops them out of the national title game. This happened just 30 minutes before the kickoff of the Big XII title game. Florida losing placed Texas right where we prayed we would be, poised to beat a Colorado team whom we had dominated41-7 earlier in the year. That was all that we had to do, beat Colorado again.
Enter Chris Simms. Chris started ok, taking us 85 yards in 2 minutes on the first possession. It could have been on 4 plays, but he underthrew a wide open Sloan Thomas, which should have been a touchdown. Enter the Colorado zone blitz. Chris proceeded to have 2 interceptions lead to Colorado scores in the first half. Then he fumbled. That is 3 turnovers in 1 half. This is the killer. We hold after his fumble, and 3 plays later, he throws another pick. But on this one, while he is on the ground, presumably crying, as I would, Cedric Benson and Mike Williams are chasing down the guy that made the interception, and both combining on the tackle. They injure each other, and there go our all-american offensive lineman, as well as our stud running back, on the same play, which they had nothing to do with. Mind you that they are both in the pros now. Chris Simms just did not know what to do when the pressure was on, so he folded. The smartest thing he did that game was get injured, allowing Major Applewhite to come into the game, and rally us to what looked like a victory, but the sad truth was that we blew it, and lost by 2 points. My rant right now is not about that particular game, or the roughing the punter call, or any of that, it is about Chris Simms.
Somehow, Chris was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, there is some logic behind this. Chris has more natural ability at the QB position than anyone I have seen in a while, barring a certain VY. His passes, even if to the other team, were always beautiful, and boy could that guy have a great practice. That made most of the longhorn nation question Mack Brown's ability to coach a team, or develop players. Everyone could just say, "Well look what he did with Chris Simms." I said it, and so did everyone else, even up to Adrian Peterson about 18 months ago. Peterson said he wanted to go somewhere where he would get a shot to develop, win a national championship, and go pro, and Texas just did not make its players better. How could we blame him? He had a point, just look at Chris Simms. To borrow a phrase from the not-so-great Lee Corso, "Not so fast my friend!"
I bring you this gem of a quote from none other than bucs head coach Jon Gruden:

-Oct 31 Although Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden was clearly unhappy with Chris Simms' performance Sunday, he said Simms will start next week's game against the Panthers, according to the Tampa Tribune. "He has to understand our protections better; he has to know where our hot receivers are [on blitzes] and he has to know when it's best to just throw the ball away," Gruden said.

As much as I hate to say it, this is somehow pleasing to me. Was Mack really that bad at developing Simms, or was he unteachable, just the type who will fold under pressure at any time, under any coach? It seems like Chris Simms is the overacheiving kid who takes his PSAT's and gets a 1400, and then when it comes to SAT time, won't even spell his own name correctly. For everything that I said, Mack, I am sorry, you don't suck as a coach, you should just have had the balls to take him out of that game. It sure would have made the last 4 years a lot easier.

To close, I just want to post this picture that I found, its priceless.



Have a good day, and Hook 'em.