No-Brainer: Young Should Head to NFL

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. Just after the break of dawn, as Southern Californians hit the snooze alarm and well-heeled Texans wearing the previous night's clothes filled the breakfast joints in Century City and Beverly Hills, a new Wheaties box featuring Longhorns Coach Mack Brown was being distributed. Asked mid-morning about the cereal box, Brown said, "Vince should be on there . . . with me holding him up."

With his Rose Bowl performance, Vince Young elevated his status, even among his teammates and coaches. He ran for 200 yards, passed for 267, sprinted eight yards with 19 seconds left for the winning score, and secured himself god-like status in his adoring home state. It's good to be Vince Young -- so good that he must bid adieu to college and move on.

Any position other than, "Kid, it was great; now get out" would be irresponsible. Oh, the love-fest will tempt Young to stay, as will life as the biggest BMOC in the history of the university. Brown spoke late Wednesday night, immediately after the game, of Young coming back to win the Heisman, playing for a repeat championship and putting individual records so far out there it would take perhaps decades for anyone to break them.

It's nonsense.

Does it matter a whit that Jim Brown and Jerry Rice and Walter Payton and Joe Montana and John Elway never won the Heisman Trophy? Of course not. And it won't ultimately to Young's career either.

Vince Young cannot be allowed to take another snap in college football.

If he does, the good folks at the University of Texas have failed him.

In the spring of 1984, after Michael Jordan's junior year at the University of North Carolina had concluded, Dean Smith, after making all the important phone calls, sat down with Jordan and told him he was leaving college for the NBA. Jordan cried. He loved North Carolina, still does. He felt the same way about Chapel Hill that Young feels about Austin. It's home. Still, Smith knew he had to advise Jordan to leave. And now, Mack Brown has to do the same for Young.

Leading up to Wednesday's Rose Bowl, word from in-the-know Longhorns circles was that Young was leaning heavily toward coming back for his senior year. And that seemed incredibly shortsighted. Nothing that happened in the game against USC, other than an injury, would have convinced me otherwise.

But after turning in one of the dominant performances in college football history, against a two-time defending champion no less, Young simply has to go.

Asked about his decision to stay or to go, Young said during his morning-after interview session that he will sit and talk with his family and Brown about what to do.

Brown, after a half-night's sleep and some time to think about the kid who delivered the University of Texas its first football championship in 36 years, had changed his tune for the most part. "The worst thing that could possibly happen," Brown said, Young sitting next to him, "would be for a coach to try to convince a young guy to come back if it was not the best thing for him."