In This Year's Orange Bowl, There's Some Really Plum Talent

Michael Wilbon says he would have voted for Southern California running back Reggie Bush for the Heisman. (Marc Serota - Reuters)

MIAMI

Blame the BCS for eclipsing all these mega talents. If we hadn't spent the entire college football season engaged in debate over the stupid bowl system and what ought to be done about it, we might have spent more time noticing what appears to be a bumper crop of great college football players.

It's staggering that one game -- Tuesday night's Orange Bowl between Southern Cal and Oklahoma -- could feature four players as talented, as productive and as professionally promising as Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Jason White and Adrian Peterson. Just having USC's Leinart (2004) and Oklahoma's White (2003) makes it the first time two Heisman Trophy winners have ever participated in one game. And it's possible that neither is his team's best or most prolific player. When you add Oklahoma's Peterson (second in the Heisman voting) and Bush (fifth), it means four of the top five Heisman finishers will be on the field here Tuesday night -- something else that's never happened.

Everywhere you look in the biggest bowl games, there are great players turning in sublime performances. The Rose Bowl was downright lavish to have Texas quarterback Vince Young and Michigan wide receiver Braylon Edwards. And Young is just a sophomore! The kid runs with the athletic grace of Marcus Allen, yet he's 6 feet 5 and has a decent touch on his short passes. And the best news of all: He has two years of college ball to learn how to become a passer. Okay, he probably has only one year before going to the NFL, but that's a lot longer than some tot playing high school basketball would have been allowed.

You have to be great to be the most wondrous phenom in a game that includes Michigan's Edwards, who looks to be every bit as big and explosive as Detroit Lions receiver Roy Williams. But a player who'll probably have more immediate value than Young or Edwards is Utah quarterback Alex Smith (fourth in this year's Heisman voting behind White, who was third). If it's throwing and running you want in a quarterback, Smith's the kid. It's too bad Utah had to get stuck with such a lightweight opponent -- Pittsburgh -- because I would have liked to have seen Smith and Urban Meyer's offense go against, say, Auburn in the Sugar Bowl.

But there I go again. It's Pavlovian. You say, "BCS" and I take out pepper spray. People should be encouraged to rail against the BCS and those who support it anywhere at any time in the interest of replacing it with a proper playoff system. Still, I have to admit that it's that drop-the-gloves sentiment surrounding the BCS that kept that examination front and center all season and relegated a great group of players to backstage in this college football season. We might wake up one day and ask how in the world Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers got to be so good with hardly any notice. Same goes for Louisville quarterback Stefan LeFors.

Oklahoma has a punt returner, Antonio Perkins, whose eight touchdown returns tie the NCAA record. Southern Cal defensive end Shaun Cody might be as good defensively as Leinart and Bush are offensively, but he might not be any better than Oklahoma's defensive end by the same surname, Dan Cody. Southern Cal linebacker Matt Grootegoed was runner-up for the Butkus Award (behind Derrick Johnson of Texas). Oklahoma's Jammal Brown won the Outland Trophy as college football's best interior lineman.

And that's just this game.

Let's not forget that the best player on the field, had he been allowed to play and not treated so unfairly by the NCAA, would probably be Mike Williams, the USC wide receiver who was declared ineligible because he entered the draft last year before the courts told him he wouldn't be allowed in the NFL.

That would be Leinart, Bush and Williams on one team.

I don't vote for the Heisman anymore, but if I did, I would have voted for Bush. Watching him is like watching a young Marshall Faulk. USC has a lineman, a fifth-year guard named Travis Watkins, who has known of Bush for seven years.

"My cousin played against Reggie in Pop Warner football," Watkins said. "He was weaving in and out and around people when he was 13. In high school, Reggie just hurt people's feelings. He didn't even mean to score touchdowns on some plays and he did. And remember, with our offense if he was the showcase guy who was getting all the touches, he would be the Heisman Trophy winner, hands down. His stats would be astronomical. And he's not some dumb jock. He's on schedule to graduate [with a degree in psychology] in less than four years."

There's nothing dumb about Watkins. He's an international relations major who also was a shot putter on the USC track and field team. Under no pretense about playing in the NFL, Watkins had a scout's mind about players. He went to the same high school as Utah's Smith. "I'm so proud of Alex and how he's made himself a great player. I think he should have been number two in the Heisman voting."

By the time USC and Oklahoma kick it off Tuesday night, there will be no other games. Auburn won't have a voice in who will be voted No. 1 and declared the national champion. For the first and only time all season, arguing will be displaced by what happens on the field, which, given the participants, could be fairly memorable.