Appreciate the props and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's drawn this comparison.

When I read it again, I sound like I was totally inspired by guilt, but my real motivation was shame. There are few things in this life that I detest more than hypocrites and I couldn't have a been a bigger one this morning.

I was literally yelling at the TV and admonishing the Red Sox fans...maybe, in a way, I wanted to apologize to them too with this post though I feel like we're all guilty of doing these guys an injustice.

He's fair game for that one...he volunteered that info to the press.

If you recall, everyone thought the Sooners were a lock to go to the conference title. All they had to do was beat a so-so OSU team at home. Hell, even Stoops made that infamous remark before the game, "Texas can call themselves co-champs of the south if they want, we're the ones going to Dallas."

Anyway, an OU alum I know, who was also sure the Sooners were coming to town, comandeered his company's suite for the game for ten of his Sooner friends, but he still had to pay $100 per ticket plus the cost of booze and food.

And of course when the Sooners lost and Texas got the nod, all of his friends bailed and he was forced to scramble. Me and bunch of my Texas friends agreed to buy the tickets, but he still had to take care of the booze and food tab.

We thought this was the ultimate revenge...now most us of don't even like to admit we were even there.

It's a pretty cool little tidbit. Thanks for pointing it out.

with Applewhite and Simms.  Both were pro-style qbs, and there was no such thing as thunder and lightening, or whatever name they want to assign to Chiles' pass-less offensive set this year.  Personal was the same.

Literally the only difference was who was helming the show.

I was at the game as well with the Band, and what I remember most is that our team was dead in the water when Simms was playing, but Mack would not pull him.  I mean it was bad, terrible decisions, no confidence, he looked like a 7th grader against NFL players, but Mack would not pull him.

Then he "injured" his finger.  One of those, nothing you can see, nothing that would affect him later, and nothing that anyone more than 2 feet away could definitively call as a legitimate injury.  Watching the game, I had the feeling that Simms gave up, Mack wasn't going to pull him, so he pulled himself.

Then Applewhite came in, and just didn't have enough time to cover up for Simms.  We were the better team.  Sure Geiggar screwed up, and sure the Buffs still scored on our D, but we could have, and should have won despite those.

Anyone who was there, left with the feeling that if Simms had started the whole game, we win handily, just like we did earlier in the year.  Simms, for whatever reason, was just plain bad that day, and Applewhite was not.

This entry outlines it well - http://www.burntorangenation.com/sto...

either the holiday bowl loss to Oregon or the 2001 big 12 championship game loss.

Some other games, maybe.  Not those two.  And you can't blame Simms for the Oregon loss either.  He threw two no-doubt-about-it winning touchdown passes in the final 5 minutes that were flat-out dropped by freshmen WR's Roy Williams and BJ Johnson.

And as for the big 12 championship game, I don't know if you watched it or not considering you're just in college now, but beyond Simms' total collapse in the first half (3 interceptions and a fumble) which were clearly individual mistakes rather than systemic ones, the defense didn't exactly hold up its end of the bargain either.  do you remember those pictures this past fall of USC opening those gigantic holes for its running backs?  it was like that.  i have nightmares about Chris Brown and Bobby Purify running wild to this day.  Greg Davis didn't give up 29 first half points.

Right before the end of the first half, Chris got "hurt" and Major came in: False start, incomplete pass, 79-yard TD pass to BJ Johnson.  Everyone sort of settled down after that.  If Geiggar doesn't rough the punter in the 4th quarter, we win that game, I'm almost positive.  And to be honset, I'm still not sure that was roughing.  I think at most it was running into, which is a 5-yard penalty and it was 4th and 8.

Regardless, the point is, you can't blame GD for any of that.  Clearly the game plan was fine, Simms and the defense just didn't show up the first half.  And we still might have overcome it if not for a Geiggar mistake and a questionable call on the roughing the punter.

Go Cubbies!  F the Sox!

Time certainly brings perspective and maybe even a reconcilation one of these days, but thinking about this Simms thing some more, I think another reason people find it hard to like him is he never redeemed himself or left any kind of lasting memory to his time at UT.

Looking back, he had some nice wins over the Aggies and a lot of people remember his unbelieveable 3rd quarter in the 2000 game when he lit them up for like 300 yards in one quarer, but his best win was probably against #17 K-State up in Manhattan. It was a hell of a game and Simms played well driving UT down the field for the winning TD in the 4th while the defense blocked a FG try as time ran out to win 17-14. But of course, it happened the week after another OU loss and UT fans were still pissed about that.

He also beat #14 CU at home in 2001, but of course had his melt-down game against that same CU team later that season. So no credit for that one.

HIs last game was the Cotton Bowl win over LSU which was pretty impressive except LSU wasn't even ranked at the time and the only reason UT was in the Cotton Bowl at 10-2 instead of a BCS bowl was because OU blew the Big XII Title game to that same 8-4 K-State team mentioned above.

What some may not remember is Simms went 21-4 his Junior and Senior years...unfortunately, he'll only be remembered for those 4 losses because the ended up being what kept UT out of the BCS.

But no excuses, he had his chances and I'm not trying to make a case for him going down as one of the greats. I'm simply saying he didn't deserve all the hate that came his way.