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Simms/Applewhite from a former players inside perspective

jsto60

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Sep 3, 2005
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Babers: Answering questions on Simms/Applewhite, Greg Davis


Texas Newsletter



This week Lifetime Longhorn Rod Babers turns his weekly column into a Q&A for Horns247 members. Rod took on the task of answering two questions that took up all of the allotted space for this week -- he gives his take on the Chris Simms/Major Applewhite quarterback controversy and what he and his teammates really thought of Greg Davis as the Longhorns' offensive coordinator during his time on the Forty Acres.

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Simms got a long with teammates, but Babers points out there was an issue with the talented quarterback when it came to big games.
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Q: I've been an unwavering, and at times, a somewhat creepy defender of Chris Simms on these boards. I know you are/were pretty tight with Chris and his family. Without compromising your trust and friendship with him, what can you share with us of that whole Simms/Applewhite saga? I would love to know more about both your perception of the two QBs as well as the then team's popular perception of the two QBs. Also, it seems to me like nobody puts as much pressure on Chris Simms as Chris Simms does. Is that a fair observation? I would love to learn anything else you feel like it's above the board and fair to share with this community such as their personalities, understanding of the game, work ethic, toughness, intelligence, leadership skills, charisma, would be greatly appreciated. -- TexShoe

Babers: The players were split to a certain degree. The players weren't split because they liked one guy more than the other; they had different qualities as leader. Chris Simmswas really engaged and really involved. This a guy whose dad was a leader in the locker room, a pro quarterback, so he understood he had to have a certain aura about him as soon as he stepped on campus if he was going to be the guy.

He was really big about taking the offensive linemen out to eat and hanging out as a team. He almost brought [a professional] aspect to the team and Major wasn't really about that. We really didn't hang out with Major as much and Major didn't go out with the guys a lot. He had a group he hung out with and that was it.

Chris Simms was basically campaigning from the time he got there and I think that was the whole point. His dad was like, “Hey, [Applewhite] has already cemented himself as the leader and he's gained the respect of the guys in the locker room. You have to go in there and campaign and win a lot of those guys over.” That's essentially what he was doing, in my opinion, and I think he did a good job of that.

In the workouts nobody worked harder than Chris Simms. Major's not going to lead the 100-yard dash sprints; Chris Simms might lead one of those things. He was a hard worker, and I'm not saying Major wasn't a hard worker, he just wasn't an athlete. Have you seen Major Applewhite? Have you seen his body? His body is the same as it was when was playing. It hasn't transformed that much -- the pudgy frat dude who was wide-waisted with the freckles and the helmet too big. It was like, this is the guy going out there and carving people up with a spoon?

That sets the tone for the locker room right there -- you've got one guy who's been there and done that and one guy campaigning to win that spot. For the players, in the end, all we wanted to do was win. Whoever gave us the best chance to win that's who we wanted to be in there. Period. I didn't care. Chris Simms was and still is a really good friend of mine; I didn't care if he won that job or not, he's still going to be my dawg. I didn't care of Major won it. I just wanted the best quarterback to win it because I just wanted to win games and I think that's what it came down to for most of the players.

For coach Brown, totally different story. Coach Brown wanted to make sure that Chris Simms ended up being the quarterback of the future and he had incentive to do that because it ended up helping recruiting. That's how you get B.J. Johnson, Roy Williams and Sloan Thomas. That's how you get a Cedric Benson. I'm sorry folks, but that was part of it. Say what you want, but Chris Simms is still one of the biggest and most pivotal, important recruits we ever recruited to the Forty Acres because Chris Simms was the lynchpin who got a whole lot of other four- and five-star guys.

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Applewhite didn't have any of the traits of an elite athlete, but he did manage to win over his teammates with what he did on the field.
You may not get VY without Chris Simms. That's the domino effect of the type of talent like that.

To give people a little more perspective on Chris Simms' personality, the reason he ultimately decommitted from Tennessee, well, Tim Brewster No. 1, who was a damn good recruiter working for Florida State now, but he said it was a team that was racially divided. He said he hung out with guys multiple weekends and never hung out with a clique that was white and black. He was like, “Wow, this is weird. My dad played in New York City. We went to dinner with Lawrence Taylor. It was unheard of for anything to be racially divided. It was all about one mission and that was to win games.”

He didn't feel comfortable at Tennessee because they were so racially divided, but he loved the culture of Austin. Ironically, he's a hippie at heart and he loved Austin. He loved Texas and how liberal it was. All of that played a role in him coming here and he hasn't been back to the university since he left.

Major was a coach on the field. That was obvious. And, yes, Major would change some of the plays when he would come in the game. It makes sense now because he was a coach -- he was seeing things other guys weren't seeing and analyzing the field from a different dimension.

As far as the pressure on Chris Simms, and I've said this for years that I think some of it is Phil because Phil Simms is really hard on his kids. Phil's from old school, backwoods Kentucky. Phil is an old school football guy. When I stayed up there with the Simms family before the combine we'd get up at like 6 a.m. just to go throw. We'd go to a high school football field, find someone to turn on the lights and just go throw. I'm like, “Man, I just want to sleep!” He's like, “No! You've got to get up and go!” When I would drop passes he made me do push-ups.

I'm not saying anything against Chris Simms' football I.Q. and acumen because he knows football, but in those big, pressure-packed situations that already have enough pressure -- the Texas-OU games, the bowl games, the Big 12 title game -- those are the only games where Chris Simms had his worst games. He just added more pressure onto himself in terms of how he had to perform and he imploded and collapsed every time.

That's the beauty of a Vince Young, a Colt McCoy and even a Major Applewhite to a certain extent -- they can put themselves spiritually in this place even in the most pressure-packed situations and they can put themselves at ease when Rome is burning around them. I've never had that gift, I was way too excited, but when you have that as a quarterback it's contagious to those other guys around you. That's why when VY walks into that huddle and looks into their eyes in that 2006 Rose Bowl they all believe because they've seen it and experienced it and they can feel it. We didn't feel that with Chris Simms all the time.

They were not friends. I'm not going to lie to you and say when they got into meeting room they were buddies. They were not friends. Hell, I think coach (Greg) Davis screwed up when he made them roommates on away games. That's a disaster. Why would you do that? It was awkward, so Chris Simms is eating downstairs and he's hanging out in our room. He was like, “I don't have anything against Major, but I don't want to sit in there and kick it with him.”

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How different would things have been if Brown had redshirted Simms and avoided much of the firestorm of controvsey that resulted during the time of the quarterback debate?
They weren't friends, but they were professional enough that they worked with each other. I remember them talking about defenses on the sideline. I remember Major giving Chris Simms tidbits and advice. It wasn't, “Oh, I hope he screws up so I can go out there.” It was not that at all. I want to put that out there. That was not the case for either one of those guys. That, to me, let it be know that there was enough mutual respect to make it work.

What it comes down to is Mack Brown didn't have the testicular fortitude and the scones to redshirt Chris Simms like he should have because he didn't want to tell Phil. I've heard it from different sources, but this is just me and my opinion, I think part of the decommitment from Tennessee to come to Texas, part of that was you won't have to redshirt and you'll end up starting at one point early on. I think one of those back room deals took place, but everybody knows looking back now that Chris Simms should've redshirted. It would've been great for the program and been great for everybody, and you had the perfect quarterback in place to make the redshirt happen.

I think ultimately it hurt the development of Chris Simms and hurt the development of the program.

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Q: Since we're on the offensive topic. what did the PLAYERS think of Greg Davis? Good coach? Knew what he was doing? Just wondering b/c this was also debated for about 15 years. What did Major, Simms, Chance, VY, Colt and the rest of the offensive players think? -- TexAus

Babers: I don't know what the quarterbacks had to say about coach Davis. I do know that Chris Simms stayed in contact with coach Davis even after he left. I don't know if that was him being professional or what, but they stayed in contact.

I was always complaining that coach Davis, once he got Sloan Thomas and B.J. Johnson and Roy Williams that they weren't all on the field at one time. He could've just run the three-wide, which became very popular and prominent once we left, but he wanted to stay in that pro-style. He loved it. The Matt Trissels of the world out there, the Chad Stevens of the world out there, Mike Jones.

He wanted the tights ends and the fullbacks out there and we knew watching it like, “Man, we're really handcuffing ourselves.” I was looking at it from a defensive back point of view -- if you put all three of those receivers on the field at the same time, I'm freaking out. I'd call a timeout because I'd be freaking out, but we didn't do that. We'd put Roy out there by himself, B.J. on the other side and then lets see what we've got.

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Davis was a championship coordinator who coached great quarterbacks, but the players early in his Texas tenure didn't see him at his best.
I think toward the end we ran some more three-wide, but I think a lot our development as an offense was handcuffed because we didn't have all of our talent on the field so we could maximize it, and Chris Simms should've been in the shotgun. I know it helped his pro-style development, but having him come out from under center being 6-5, that came back to haunt us in the Oklahoma game.

I think not being experimental enough and not being a trailblazer offensively hurt Greg Davis and hurt that offense and hurt a lot of those guy's development. We know nowGreg Davis is a great offensive mind, but we just missed it. Back then Oklahoma and Texas Tech were wacky and crazy because they ran the spread, now you're crazy if you have a fullback. Just subtle things like that.

I think ultimately people had a lot of respect for Greg Davis and all of the offensive records were set during Greg Davis' time on the Forty Acres. But we were critical of him for not putting enough talent on the field.

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Rod Babers (follow him on Twitter @rodbabers) was a top-level recruit in 1999 out of Houston Lamar. He was a multiple-year starter for the Longhorns and in 2002 was a first-team All-Big 12 selection, an All-America selection and a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award. He was drafted in the fourth round (No. 123 overall) by the New York Giants in the 2003 NFL Draft. He played for the Giants, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos during his NFL career. He also played one season with Hamilton Tiger Cats of the CFL. A graduate of the University of Texas, he now co-hosts 'The Sports Buffet' weekdays from 4-7 p.m. on AM 1300 The Zone in Austin. He also served as sideline reporter for the Longhorn IMG Radio Network from 2011-2013.
 
It is a good read. Thanks for posting, JSTO. I think he is dead on accurate about the recruiting domino effect, which is something I never thought about. Everybody wanted Simms to be the starter. When things didn't go perfectly, they wanted Applewhite back in. I don't even blame Mack. Fans can be so bipolar and think that it is so simple to substitute a QB to where the wind is blowing at that particular second.
 
It is a good read. Thanks for posting, JSTO. I think he is dead on accurate about the recruiting domino effect, which is something I never thought about. Everybody wanted Simms to be the starter. When things didn't go perfectly, they wanted Applewhite back in. I don't even blame Mack. Fans can be so bipolar and think that it is so simple to substitute a QB to where the wind is blowing at that particular second.


I think this is spot on. I was in the Applewhite camp all along. But certainly was intrigued with Simms signing and his potential. I had friends who were firmly in his camp who did switch eventually.

For all the guff Simms got (mostly due to high expectations and bad play in key big games).....the guy did plenty for this school. Its sad that to this day, he doesn't feel welcome to come back to campus.


I've got a few stories about the two. As a starting OL at the time had a fiancee who was roommates with my girl. I can confirm that Simms did take the OL out to eat quite a bit.

But I also know of a story about the team going to movie theatres on the night before the game. Simms was sitting alone in a corner in the hallway before the theatre let out and the team got the spots. Applewhite on the other hand had the WRs chatting with him and a girl walk up to stay and hang out a bit with him as well.
 
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