Young Pushes Old Aside
Longhorns Dethrone Southern Cal

By Eric Prisbell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 4 -- Two historic and star-studded offenses traded blows Wednesday night in a national championship game for the ages that produced a new king of college football.

Texas claimed its fourth national championship and ended Southern California's 34-game win steak with a 41-38 victory in a Rose Bowl game that lived up to the nearly unprecedented hype it received over the past month.

Texas (13-0) extended its win streak to 20 games thanks to the all-around brilliance of quarterback Vince Young, who led the Longhorns on a game-winning scoring drive in the final two minutes after USC failed to convert on a fourth-and-two play at the Texas 45.

Finally, on fourth and five at the USC 8, Young took off to the right and outran everyone into the end zone with 19 seconds remaining. For good measure, he converted the two-point conversion on a sneak.

"It is a really surreal feeling when you are sitting there in the fourth quarter down two scores and still think you are going to win," Texas Coach Mack Brown said.

If Young felt he had something to prove after finishing a distant second to USC's Reggie Bush in the Heisman Trophy race, his resounding message has been well-received across the country. One year after single-handedly beating Michigan in this very stadium, Young rushed for 200 yards on 19 carries and passed for 267 yards to leave fans of both teams wowed.

A crowd of 93,986 watched Young upstage a cast of stars for the Trojans (12-1), who lost their first game since September 2003 and failed to become the first team in history to win three consecutive Associated Press national titles.

There was USC running back LenDale White, who scored on three touchdown runs, and wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett, whose acrobatic 22-yard touchdown reception midway through the fourth quarter stretched the Trojans' lead to 12 points.

Not to be overlooked was last year's Heisman winner, quarterback Matt Leinart, who completed 16 of 19 passes in the second half and finished with 365 passing yards in his final college game.

And finally there was tailback Reggie Bush, this year's dazzling Heisman winner who was held in check early but responded with a flurry in the fourth quarter. On a 26-yard scoring run, Bush became a blur down the sideline and then flipped head over heels into the end zone for a score that gave USC a 31-23 lead.

After what is expected to be the final college game for Bush, who finished with 82 rushing yards, the junior simply said, "We tried to do too much."

Texas players seemed amused all week at the paeans heaped on USC's offense, which was hailed by many as the best ever. But when the Trojans needed only two yards with 2 minutes 13 seconds remaining, White was stopped short. USC Coach Pete Carroll said he felt he had to go for it on fourth down near midfield.

"It did not really matter where they were going to start," Carroll said of the Longhorns' prolific offense, which averaged 50.9 points per game this season. "That was our moment to seal the win."

On Texas's final drive, Carroll said he tried to clog up all the rushing holes so Young could not run at will, but the Trojans could only do so much. Carroll estimated that Young made the Trojans miss a dozen tackles.

Texas had the best defense, ranked sixth overall nationally, that USC had seen all year. The Longhorns held a 16-10 halftime lead, but the Trojans were no strangers to halftime deficits. In fact, they trailed at Arizona State 21-3 at halftime before roaring back to dominate the second half.

On USC's first possession of the second half Wednesday, Leinart engineered a seven-play, 62-yard drive that ended with White's second touchdown of the game, a three-yard burst. It took a mere two minutes for Young to strike back with an 80-yard drive and a 14-yard touchdown run.

Instant replay played a critical role early in the game. In the second quarter, Leinart floated a pass to Steve Smith toward the side of the end zone, but free safety Michael Griffin stepped in front and intercepted as his momentum took him out of bounds. The pass was initially ruled incomplete, but the Texas faithful erupted in protest after video replays in the Rose Bowl showed that Griffin got his right foot down before he went out of bounds.

The play was overturned.

Later in the quarter, the Longhorns benefited from a lack of a replay reversal. On first down from the Trojans' 22, Young danced 11 yards through the defense before being wrapped up by safety Darnell Bing. While falling to the ground, Young flipped the ball back to running back Selvin Young, who took it the remaining 11 yards into the end zone for a go-ahead score.

The crowd offered no protest afterward, even though television replays showed Young's knee down before he flipped the ball to his teammate.

"There was a tremendous amount of pressure on them," Brown said. "Those streaks are a difficult thing. And now we're at 20 and leading the pack."