AUSTIN, Texas -- Colt McCoy hasn't forgotten, Texas. You booed him and it still hurts.

Barely two years ago Kansas State won here 41-21, beating Texas for the second consecutive year. That was before Colt was Colt, when his name around these parts was actually mud.

The boos are history as Colt McCoy enjoys the adulation of the Longhorns faithful. (AP)

Colt hasn't forgotten, Texas, because there is something he wants to prove to you. That record he set Saturday night in the Longhorns' 51-20 victory over Kansas? Impressive but hardly the point. McCoy became Division I-A's winningest quarterback with his 43rd career victory. By the time he's done, probably in the first week of January, that record will be all but retired.

McCoy will never say it but he wants retirement of another kind. That would be sitting on the back porch back in Tuscola, Texas at an advanced age someday known far and wide as Texas' greatest quarterback. Better than Bobby Layne, better than James Street, better even than Vince Young.

But first, Texas, he has a score to settle with you. You see it hasn't always been hugs and roses around here. Ask Todd Dodge, the North Texas coach, who still speaks bitterly of the pressure he endured in the mid-1980s. Ask VY, who suddenly had the light go on for him midway through his sophomore year before winning a national championship as a junior. Before that, the eyes of Texas were drilling a hole in him.

"If you ask every quarterback who has ever played here they've been booed," McCoy said. "Vince has been booed off the field, more than once. Major [Applewhite] got booed off the field. Chris Simms got booed off the field more than once ...

"The expectation here is like playing for an NFL team. They set their expectations so high. That's probably the hardest thing to handle. Outside of here, outside of this facility, when I'm on the field I have a purpose. The struggle is when I'm away from here."

Bitter? Nah. Realistic. Much will be made of the great Colt breaking Georgia quarterback David Greene's record (42 career victories), but it's only a number. Behind Greene is Peyton Manning. Add up the accomplishments of the top three and you get a combined 12 years and two conference titles. That's it.

No national championships, no Heismans. Manning could never beat Florida. Greene never was Manning. One conference title each. McCoy doesn't even have one of those, yet. With the win, the Horns clinched the South Division and advanced to their first Big 12 title game since 2005.

McCoy is not saying it's going to be a repeat of that championship year, Texas, but he certainly wants you to know he deserves it. Fifteen players were in that 2005 recruiting class, the smallest and lowest rated of Mack Brown's Texas career. Only five remain. A skinny kid from Tuscola is one of them.

"I get up here about 7:30 every day, leave here at 9:30 or 10:00 at night," McCoy said. "Some people don't see that. The hardest thing is, I've grown up as a man, as a person so much. I've been at the lowest of lows here. I've been booed."

Yeah, we knew that.

That's what made part of Saturday so strange. There wasn't a soul in the record crowd of 101,537 who thinks there is a Heisman race left to decide. The runner-up in 2008 certainly looked like the 2009 winner throwing for 396 yards and four touchdowns against the Jayhawks.

After a slow (for him) start this season, McCoy might have shot to the top of the Heisman list. It's still a fluid situation, but consider that McCoy extended his nation-best streak to 28 consecutive games with a touchdown pass. He has a touchdown pass in 47 of his 50 starts. A pooch kick out of the spread formation pinned Kansas inside its 20. All six of his career punts have landed in the red zone.

Texas, 11-0, has trailed once, briefly, since the Oklahoma game on Oct. 17.

But let's not get too far ahead. The greatest-ever tag gets attached only if the huggable, loveable Colt wins a national championship. He knows that. As fine as his career has been, McCoy hasn't won so much as a conference title.

He was redshirted in 2005 which wasn't surprising when he showed up on campus at a scrawny 179 pounds. The year was spent bulking up, eventually watching Young beat USC with 19 seconds left in the Rose Bowl.

"I wasn't prepared for him to leave," McCoy said. "I thought he had one more year. When he won the national championship, it kind of hit me. You get a phone call from him, 'It's yours. I'm going to the NFL. I'm moving on. I've taught you everything I know. Now you go get 'em.' "

Nice sentiment. Long time to get results. In 2006, Texas lost to Kansas State and Texas A&M, ruining any shot for a division title. In 2007 there were back-to-back losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma. Last season, McCoy bulked up to 215 knowing that the Texas running game was struggling and that he would be called upon to run more. He did and tacklers bounced off that bigger frame. McCoy also became the most accurate passer in I-A history.

There was a No. 1 ranking, too, which meant little after that one niggling loss to Texas Tech that doomed Texas to the cursed Big 12 tiebreaker. That locked out Colt and his teammates of the division, conference and national championships.

The case can be made, then, for McCoy winning the biggest game of his career on Saturday. It put the Horns in the Big 12 title game where they will be prohibitive favorites two weeks from now. Win that and the Longhorns are back in 2005 territory with a reminder from their coach.

"You sit around listening to everybody talking about Pasadena and you don't play well," Mack Brown said, "then stupid for you. That's what happened to us last year."

There is, it turns out, such a thing as a lifetime achievement award. It could have gone to Jevan Snead, who transferred after watching McCoy beat him out. It could have gone, even, to Ryan Perrilloux who was the No. 1 recruit in the country, committed to Texas, then reneged and went to LSU. Thank goodness.

A strange thing has happened as McCoy has clobbered the competition. They have responded with something close to love. Oklahoma's Auston English and Gerald McCoy politely waited until a TV interview was over to compliment McCoy after the game.

"He's beaten us three out of four," Brown recalled them saying, "and we'd like to congratulate him."

Central Florida coach George O'Leary sought McCoy out after a 32-point loss and did the same thing, making sure that the quarterback was a senior so he could do no further damage.

Embattled Kansas coach Mark Mangino told him Saturday he was a better person than he was a player.

If this is starting to sound like a Tim Tebow schmoozefest, it kind of is. There's only one way this season can turn out for Texas. If the story is going to end like everyone here wants, if McCoy is going to bury those boos in the back of his mind, there's only want way to finish.

Perfect.