Chris Simms was in a cab from the Dallas airport this week heading to a photo shoot, his ear stuck to a cell phone. The party on the other end wanted details. It would be more heady stuff for the Texas quarterback if the famous names being tossed around were with Simms in a magazine's cover shot.

"It's a secret right now," Simms said.

Here is one of the bad plays: This pass was deflected by Oklahoma's Roy Williams and intercepted for a TD.(AP)

The magazine doesn't want its identity or photo subjects to be known. And if you're Chris Simms that's a good thing in the lazy, hazy days of the offseason.

What Simms probably doesn't need right now is more hype. One magazine last year tabbed him the preseason Heisman favorite as a junior, having started all of eight career games. Jaws, including Simms', dropped. By the end of the season, Texas fans were calling him something else after four first-half turnovers against Colorado jump-started the Buffaloes' 39-37 victory in the Big 12 title game.

Simms was yanked at halftime and lost his starting job in the bowl game. The same description started to pop up: Great kid, great arm, great attitude, great pedigree, but ...

"Simms has a lot of unanswered questions," NFL.com draft guru Gil Brandt said. "He plays great some games; he's got the tools to play great. Then he plays Colorado and throws all those interceptions and then doesn't get the start in the bowl game."

Simms says the scars from 2001 have healed to form a protective shell around his ego. No one doubts he is good enough, at times. His left-handed mechanics look great. His size -- 6-foot-5, 225 pounds -- surpasses NFL standards. The bad stuff overshadows Simms being 15-4 as a starter. The deal is he has to become more consistent. In fact, some more jaws will be dropping when they read this:

A year from now Simms might be the David Carr of 2003, the No. 1 NFL draft pick.

Even at his sometimes rocky rate, Simms will have progressed enough to become the first Texas quarterback to be drafted in 19 years. If so, then he would probably become the first Longhorn quarterback to take a meaningful NFL snap since Bobby Layne in 1948.

Unlike some of his detractors who insist he has yet to win a bowl game or conference title, Simms has perspective on the subject.

"Texas was an option team there for a long time," he said. "That's the reason they didn't have too many NFL quarterbacks. At the same time you would think they'd have somebody along the line because we're so steeped in tradition. I think it's a new age for us right now, we're a new Texas team."

The Longhorns (11-2 last season) are embracing their potential. They were a game away from the Rose Bowl before the Colorado loss. Now they return a portion of the nation's best defense in 2001 along with arguably the best receivers in the country and super sophomore running back Cedric Benson. Simms himself can be called a legitimate Heisman candidate for now.

Partly because Simms was still developing, Texas didn't buy into previous favorite's roles. The 'Horns probably have the most talent in the Big 12; now they just have to follow through and win with it.

"In the last two, three years we've at least been around the top," Simms said. "It comes down to we feel we're talented enough and we're good enough. We can at least accept that we belong here."

That statement explains a lot about Simms.

Right now he's in a 2003 draft group with Marshall's Byron Leftwich and Miami's Ken Dorsey. But it rankles some that Simms is getting all this attention before actually playing well in a big game or winning a conference championship or, in Dorsey's case, a national championship.

Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis said earlier this year that one of the best years ever by a Texas quarterback (2,603 yards, 22 touchdowns) was overshadowed by the worst game of Simms' career against Colorado.

"We talk about it constantly," Simms said. "It's something that you don't want to ever have to go through, a day like that. I think his comment is pretty true. Maybe people lose sight of the fact I had a pretty good year because of that game."

Having turned 21, Simms has had to reach a new level of maturity. He is no longer the little kid who had to ask his mother if he could meet Troy Aikman at an NFL quarterback challenge in Hawaii.

"My dad wouldn't do that," Simms said of his famous father Phil. "When I really wanted to meet someone it was my mom. I was probably 10 or 11 years old. He didn't want to bother the other players. I was always a really, really big Troy Aikman fan."

Now Simms is threatening to become somewhat of a Texas legend himself. The football, we know about. But during spring break, he took teammates Rod Babers and Bo Scaife back home to New Jersey. During the visit the trio checked out New York City.

"Since I'm 21, now is another broad horizon," Simms said. "They loved it, really. They spread the word that they loved it too. Now the whole team wants to come up."

Simms won't say it, but they'd no doubt have an open invitation to New York next year -- for the draft.