Legend doesn't give a damn. He knows he's a freak. Not the Kearse kind of freak, but a George McFly kind of freak. More Urkel than Urlacher. Legend -- a.k.a. Roy Williams, the nation's most gifted college football player -- fries Oreos in a skillet with butter, quotes The Lion King and still snuggles a lucky security blanket. He's as country as a tumbleweed. His Texas teammates say the slow-talking wideout is the most bizarre character they've ever met. Even Legend's mama says her boy is, well, weird. So what? Legend doesn't care what anybody thinks.

Prince doesn't give a damn either. At least not about the opinions of outsiders. In a sense, Prince -- a.k.a. Chris Simms -- is also a freak, because he's so normal. Shockingly well-adjusted. More grounded than Dawson Leery. Prince digs Gwyneth, the Godfather movies and PlayStation 2. The son of an NFL legend and famous on his own merit before he had his driver's license, Prince couldn’t be any more the Golden Boy if he had come from Fort Knox. So you'd think the Texas 'ballers would resent him the same way they shun, say, *NSYNC.

But as most of the Longhorns desert the practice field, there's a totally different vibe. Prince drifts to the far end zone, followed by his guys -- a tight-knit group of five receivers. Legend, the most imposing of the lot at a sculpted 6'5", 210 pounds, ambles a few steps behind. Alone on the field, Prince coddles and cajoles what some scouts already call the greatest collection of pass catchers in college history -- better than Miami '87, Ohio State '94 or Florida '96. Here, Prince is equal parts gunslinger and ringleader, and after 30 minutes, you understand this isn’t so much a workout as it is kids playing catch in the Texas twilight. The sun vanishing behind him, Legend sails downfield on a go route, covering what seems like five yards with each loping stride. Prince sets his feet, cocks his left arm and unloads a tight spiral into the dark sky. Three seconds and some 60 yards later, Legend snares the ball -- behind his back.

Mothball your memories of Earl and Ricky. This is the new Texas Football.

***

Somebody's got to be the lightning rod for frustration in Tall Tale Texas, and Prince sure fits the bill. In seven of the past 10 seasons, UT has failed to finish as high as its preseason ranking. The skeptics see the blue-eyed, blond Jersey junior as the latest embodiment of the overhyped Horns. Sure, Prince looks like a Hollywood QB, but what big game has he won? They claim he’s not even better than his backup, Major Applewhite, who holds or shares 40 UT passing records and has beaten Nebraska. Twice.

In August, the Texas A&M DBs -- apparently forgetting that Prince roasted them last year for 234 yards and 3 TDs in the third quarter -- scoffed at the 13 magazine covers (ours included) he graced this preseason. That's okay, Simms says. "I expect people to say that. I'll be the first one to say I was overexposed." That's not to say Prince doesn’t keep a mental list of his critics. The Aggies are on there. So is ESPN's Lee Corso, who has questioned the Longhorns' heart and says UT picked the wrong QB.

Oklahoma tops the list. Last October, the No.10 Sooners bullied the No.11 Longhorns 63-14, announcing themselves as title contenders and knocking Texas from the chase. Then, late this summer, Simms got wind of a radio interview with OU co-defensive coordinator Mike Stoops, who implied that magazine editors must have mistaken Prince for his father, or they would've found a more deserving Heisman frontrunner than a guy who had 4 of 7 INTs returned for scores. "It doesn't bother me," Simms says. "But does it motivate me? Of course. It drives me harder."

Simms inherited the starting job late last season, after coach Mack Brown spent two months flip-flopping quarterbacks, when Applewhite sprained his right knee in November. With Simms piloting the offense, Williams and fellow frosh B.J. Johnson thrived over the final three games: Johnson averaged 20.3 yards per catch; Williams, 30.9. But with Texas rallying against Oregon in the Holiday Bowl, critical drops by both short-circuited the comeback. And both spent the off-season feeling they’d let everyone down, especially Simms, whose doubters multiplied.

The Houston Cougars have cracked Simms’ list. Days before UT’s Sept. 22 game at Houston, Cougars DE Adrian Lee promised not to hit him too hard; the team, he said, wanted to keep Applewhite on the bench. Simms threw for 311 yards and three touchdowns in a 53-26 romp. Tony Jeffery, the least hyped of UT’s receiving corps, had a breakout game in his hometown, catching one touchdown pass and breaking off a long reverse.

Sweeter still, says Jeffery, "we really shut them up." He was awash in the moment as he walked off the field with Prince. As they made their way to the tunnel, Jeffery heard a group of hecklers still taunting Simms and surveyed the crowd. The fans were decked in Burnt Orange. Jeffery just shook his head. "Chris handles that stuff well, but I took offense at that," Jeffery says. "We all do."

***

Phil Simms taught his son about chemistry, especially that of a quarterback bonding with his players. Prince saw how his dad hung with his Giants O-linemen. "He just felt very comfortable with them," Prince says. "They were 'his guys.' That's the way I feel with my receivers. We're just good friends, with the same common interests."

Prince was the recruiting host for four of his guys -- Williams, Johnson, Jeffery and Sloan Thomas -- and was the first to welcome junior WR Kyle Shanahan, the son of Bronco whiz Mike Shanahan, who transferred from the football wasteland that is Duke. Its at Simms' place where the group always hangs to play PS2. And should Simms lose at Madden 2002 -- something he swears seldom happens -- he won't let the victor leave until Prince reigns again. "He kicks the game every time I beat him," says Williams. "He's the most competitive guy any of us have ever met, and the hardest worker." To a man, the Horns receivers combatively defend Simms. "We're gonna protect him like he's the president," says Williams.

His protectors couldn't be more different from one another. Thomas, the honors student, is the boisterous practical joker. Jeffery is the guy who's always working the down low. Shanahan -- a vitamin fanatic -- is so intense he's been dubbed "Little Romanowski." Johnson is the laid-back guy. "He’s Mr. Cool," says Williams.

And then there is Legend. "He's the freak of the clique,” Johnson says. Williams comes across as a mix of Satchel Paige and Forrest Gump. He answers most questions with "yessum" and the rest with a rambling country sprawl of words that makes it hard to figure where one sentence ends and the next begins. His best friend from back home in Odessa, Desmond Hill, says Roy is still very much the doof who wore Coke-bottle glasses until the eighth grade. "He was such a dork," says Hill. "Looked just like Urkel." Roy had to wear broken glasses 20 days straight before his mom relented and let her boy get the hazel-tinted contacts he coveted.

Around Odessa, Roy became known as the kid with the pretty eyes, the mean game -- and the fuzzy gorilla slippers. Roy's been wearing them since the fifth grade. As a senior at Permian High, he even wore them between events at the state track meet, where he put on a legendary show. He took third in the 100, blazing a 10.48; second in the high jump, soaring 6'10"; and set a state-record in the long jump, flying 25'6".

Folks didn't quite know what to make of Legend when he first hit Austin. He showed up with a saxophone, wearing baggy shorts and church shoes, and had a penchant for breaking out in song (he broke the ice with his new teammates by singing a self-styled tune, "Chocolate Daddy"). Soon, the other wideouts were mimicking everything about him, from the way he talked and sang, stretching words as if his batteries were running out, to the way he stood on the sidelines, hands on hips with his toes pointing in nearly opposite directions. But none of them can copy his moves on the field. On a fade route against Colorado last season, Williams jumped into the air only to find Applewhite had delivered the ball over his other shoulder. Legend batted the ball over the defender's head, pirouetted 180° and snared it. "Roy does things every day that we've never done once before," says Thomas, who once scored 5 TDs in a half at Klein Oak High near Houston.

If there is anyone at Texas who can relate to Legend, it's Prince. Last summer, Simms invited Williams home to North Jersey for a week. "It was like I took him to a foreign country," says Simms. Williams says he enjoyed the family hospitality, but still likes Texas better. "They're all about skim milk up there, and they don't have Blue Bell ice cream," Williams mused. "Once we went to an Italian restaurant, and instead of saying 'How y'all doing?' the guy said something in a foreign language." The language was Italian. Legend feels like he and his boys have made sure Prince doesn’t revert to his hometown ways. "He doesn't say 'yooz guyz' anymore. Now he says 'y'all.'" But more than speaking each other's language, Prince and Legend share each other's burden. "People definitely expect too much from him," says Simms. "And they expect too much from me."

On Oct. 6, everyone in the state of Texas will expect Prince, Legend & Co. to avenge last season's loss to Oklahoma. If the Horns come up short again, Simms' list will get a heckuva lot longer. But if his guys get him that win over the Sooners, he just might be able to scratch it altogether.

Also check out:

·Texas WR Roy Williams (a.k.a. Legend) has so many quirks that they didn't all fit in our Texas feature. Read about them here.

·When Texas and Oklahoma square off, there will be two Roy Williamses on the field. But is OU's version better?

This article appears in the October 15 issue of ESPN The Magazine.