AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Colt McCoy is bigger, wiser, stronger and, according to his coach, playing better than ever. He's even an NCAA record-holder.
Now if he could just grow some whiskers.
The Texas quarterback says he's resigned to "looking like a 12-year-old - a young 12-year-old." Hey, his daddy didn't call him the "baby-faced assassin" for nothing when he was slinging those 29 touchdown passes last season.
McCoy, who turns 21 in September, may look like a kid, but there's little question he has become the leader of the No. 4 Longhorns as they aim for their second national championship in three years.
"This is his team now," coach Mack Brown said. "Colt looks the best I've seen him look."
Impressive, considering he tied an NCAA freshman record for touchdown passes last season when he was just supposed to be a placeholder at the position in the post-Vince Young era. His 29 TDs were more than Young threw when Texas won the national title in 2005.
McCoy, who comes from the small West Texas town of Tuscola (population 714), redshirted his first year and matured quickly after stepping in for Young.
He had to. Texas fans couldn't expect him to make the jaw-dropping plays Young did, but they weren't going to tolerate a long learning curve either.
Completing 68 percent of his passes for 2,570 yards quieted his critics. Comeback victories over Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas Tech and Iowa in the Alamo Bowl shut them up altogether.
After that kind of season, it would have been easy to relax while getting all those pats on the back around campus. Instead, McCoy hit the weights to put on 15 pounds, bulking up to around 210. You can actually see some muscles in those arms now.
"I spent a lot of time in the weight room trying to put on some weight and get bigger so I can take a few more hits," he said. "You know you're going to get rocked in the Big 12, so you have to be ready."
McCoy got popped last season and got hurt. A hit on the shoulder pinched a nerve that knocked him out of the first quarter of a 45-42 loss at Kansas State, which ended any chance of the Longhorns repeating as national champs.
He still wasn't fully recovered two weeks later and played his worst game in a 12-7 loss to Texas A&M, a defeat that cost Texas the Big 12 title. Adding insult to injury, he was carted off the field late after reinjuring the shoulder, prompting some A&M fans to mock him with the nickname "Cart McCoy."
ChrisperJ10 
