AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — With Florida quarterback Tim Tebow’s concussion the talk of college football, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy told the story of a hard knock on the head he took in high school.

McCoy was a sophomore two-way player for Jim Ned High School. He tried to tackle Bangs running back Jacoby Jones. Jones weighed about 220 pounds, and would later play in college at Baylor.

“I woke up in the hospital,” McCoy said. “He was huge. I tackled him, though.”

The concussion forced McCoy to miss the next three games, ending his season. His team lost all three and missed the playoffs.

McCoy has avoided knocks like that in college.

In 2007, he left the field in the final minutes of a 2007 loss to Kansas State with symptoms of a concussion. He was able to return to play against Oklahoma the next week and played well, passing for 324 yards and two touchdowns in a 28-21 loss.

Texas coach Mack Brown said team trainer Kenny Boyd and the medical staff make all decisions on when a player can return after an injury, whether it’s a concussion or something else.

“I have absolutely no input,” Brown said. “I don’t want it.”

Like other programs, Texas tests the players’ cognitive abilities when they are healthy before the season. That establishes a baseline of healthy brain activity.

When a player takes a blow to the head, he is tested again to see if he reaches the previous baseline. They are held out of competition and retested until they do.

“It’s a hard test. It’s memorization questions and stuff,” McCoy said. “And it’s not the same test. Some guys have to take it four or five times.”

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CELEBRATION CONUNDRUM: After some high-profile instances of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties (see last week’s Georgia-LSU game), Texas coach Mack Brown says he’s warning the Longhorns to be careful.

If they do something good, they should celebrate as a group and not let one player draw attention to himself and draw a penalty flag.

“We constantly teach celebrate with your teammates,” Brown said.

Brown was the head coach at North Carolina and served on the committee that put the first excessive celebration rule in place in the 1990s. It was meant to stop vulgar or mean-spirited behavior and “things none of us were proud of,” Brown said.

Now, he says, the rule has taken some fun out of the game for players — and penalties can change the outcome of a game.

“You want your kids to be excited. You want fun plays to be fun,” Brown said.

He worried that a 15-yard penalty would hurt his team at the end of last season’s Fiesta Bowl. Quan Cosby scored a touchdown with 16 seconds left and was flagged for diving into the end zone. Brown said Cosby was just trying to score and didn’t know there was no defender behind him.

The penalty forced Texas to kick off from its 15 yard line, giving Ohio State good field position at their 45 with time to run two plays. Texas held on for a 24-21 win.

“I was scared to death,” Brown said.

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OLDE ENGLISH LIT: Texas junior defensive end Sam Acho is already considered one of the smartest players on the team.

Sometimes, he likes to show it off.

Acho has a love of English literature, including Shakespeare and Chaucer, and can recite some of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in their original form written in the “Middle English” of the 14th century. Acho also cites Shakespeare’s play “Richard III” as a favorite.

Asked if he’d like to act the role of the English king, joining a list of great thespians such as Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen, Acho said, “that would be cool.”

But Acho has had to put down those books down recently for reading material from his marketing classes.

“I enjoy the old school,” Acho said. “I haven’t looked at in a while but I need to get back into it.”

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BY THE NUMBERS: The month of October has been good to Texas in recent years. The Longhorns are 16-1 in October dating back to the 2005 season, with the only loss coming to Oklahoma in 2007.

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QUOTABLE: “After watching football all day, I figured out I don’t like watching football all day.” — McCoy on what he did with his free time when Texas didn’t have a game last week.