Ride him, Cowboys

He led the Dallas Cowboys to victory over the previously unbeaten Indianapolis Colts. In only four NFL starts, he has the poise and swagger of a young Troy Aikman. Rumor is, he’s even dating Jessica Simpson.

Tony Romo seems almost too good to be true.

Which is why his coach is, for now, withholding judgment. Pleased as he is with Romo, who in a month has gone from clipboard-holder to Cowboy cover boy, Bill Parcells needs more convincing.

Things have gone beautifully so far. Romo is 3-1 as the starting quarterback, and the Cowboys (6-4) are back in the playoff hunt. But when it comes to really rating Romo, the coach will wait until he sees how the 26-year-old career backup rebounds from an inevitable dose of adversity.

Parcells says the real test comes “when you got beat, 38-10, and your nose is broken, and the fans are booing you, and the coaches are looking at you sideways, and the players are wondering what you can do. You’ve got to get back in the huddle on Wednesday and act like you can be a team leader.”

That’s what separates the ultra-rare Roger Staubachs from the everyday stand-ins.

“Until they go through that a couple times ... the jury is out,” Parcells said.

That said, Romo has surpassed most everyone’s expectations. He starts today’s game against Tampa Bay on quite a roll, having pulled off a signature victory in a season of tumult.

He made some of his best plays against Indianapolis in the waning minutes, when he held on to a 21-14 edge by keeping alive a drive that started at the Cowboys’ eight-yard line. Among his key plays were a 22-yard pass to tight end Anthony Fasano and a seven-yard slant pass to Terry Glenn on third and seven.

After the game, All-Pro quarterback Peyton Manning walked up to Romo and told him: “You’re a good player.”

“That,” Romo said later, “is meaningful to me.”

Those words were especially satisfying to Romo in light of his background. His dazzling numbers in college -- 8,212 yards passing and 85 touchdowns -- were open to skepticism because they were produced at Division I-AA Eastern Illinois. He was invited to the 2003 scouting combine but mostly worked in the background as a thrower in pass-catching drills.

“He was there for all four days,” recalled Gil Brandt, a scouting expert and former Cowboys executive who now helps run the media room at the combine. “We brought him around to meet the reporters on a slow day and he stayed there for an hour and a half. He was a star. He’s got that ‘it’ about him.”

However, that didn’t get him drafted among the 13 quarterbacks selected in 2003. He signed with the Cowboys for $15,000 a few days later.

“I don’t think it matters where you come from,” Romo told reporters this week. “Sometimes, when you come from a big school, you’re afforded more opportunities. Outside of that, once you get here, it’s just, ‘Show me what you can do.’ And when the time comes, you have to be able to produce.”

And when the first time came for Romo, in the exhibition opener his rookie season, well ... he fumbled the snap, scooped it up, and threw it -- into the arms of an Arizona Cardinals defender. So much for making a good first impression.

Parcells said that had Romo been forced into regular-season action as a rookie “he would have been out of football,” and even as a second-year player “he would not have had a chance to succeed.”

Things took a turn for the better in 2005, Parcells said, and Romo progressed even more during training camp in Oxnard last summer. Many observers thought he clearly outplayed starter Drew Bledsoe.

“Once that was over,” Parcells said, “I was convinced that if we had to use [Romo], I thought he would be as close to ready as an inexperienced playing guy could be.”

Since replacing the ineffective Bledsoe four games ago, Romo has completed 68% of his throws, with eight touchdowns and five interceptions, and is inching closer to Manning as the league’s top-rated passer. Manning, a two-time NFL most valuable player, has a rating of 100.5; Romo’s is 100. All that has breathed new life into a Cowboys season gone astray.

It also has turned the previously anonymous Romo into a star.

After he had led Dallas to a comeback victory over Carolina, Romo could field only some of the dozens of radio requests from around the country. The weekly out-of-studio radio show he shares with linebacker Bradie James drew a triple-digit crowd of onlookers.

And, according to the Dallas Morning News, the squatter who owned www.tonyromo.com was asking for at least $25,000 for the domain name.

Recently, the rumors of a romantic link with pop star Simpson surfaced, and one Internet gambling site posted 3-to-2 odds they would soon be confirmed as a couple.

The Romo-mania surprises his teammates least of all.

“Romo has been the coolest dude around for a while,” linebacker James told reporters this week. “The way he’s been playing is what we’ve always seen with him on the practice field. We all knew what he could do, but when you’ve got 11 beasts on the other side of the ball, we never knew how he would respond.”

Now everyone knows. But what Parcells wants to know -- though he is by no means eager for this day -- is how will Romo respond when those 11 beasts win?

“That does separate the guys that went on to be good, or better than good, or great,” the coach said, “from some of the guys who don’t wind up cutting it.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Carving them up

Tony Romo will be the seventh starting quarterback for Dallas in the last seven Thanksgiving Day games. The previous six:

*--* Year Quarterback Result 2005 Drew Bledsoe L, 24-21 2004 Drew Henson W, 21-7 2003 Quincy Carter L, 40-21 2002 Chad Hutchinson W, 27-20 2001 Ryan Leaf L, 26-24 2000 Troy Aikman L, 27-15

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Sources: stats llc.com., jt-sw.com