LARGETONY Blog

Anybody who says that football is boring has never seen a good game. I’m talking about one with a good end. This college football season has seen more good ends than any I can ever remember. So many teams having last minute comebacks, so many games going into overtime (like Tuesday night’s Orange Bowl which went into three overtimes.) And Wednesday night’s National Championship game was the capper to them all.

I know many of you breathed a sigh of relief back in October when the Vols season went down the toilet because it made me stop writing about football. But you have to bear with me just one more time. And I promise I won’t (probably won’t) mention football again until August (unless, of course the Colts go to the Superbowl. You can’t expect Peyton Manning to get his first Superbowl and me keep quiet about it.)

Even before the initial coin toss (for those of you who do not know, they flip a coin to decide which team gets the ball first) this game had all the ingredients to be historic: It was a National Championship game; it was also the Rose Bowl, which is the the most legendary of all the bowl games; both teams (University of Southern California Trojans and University of Texas Longhorns) went the entire season ranked # 1 and #2, respectively; USC was going for its third National Championship in a row; USC was on a 34-game (3 seasons) winning streak; Texas has had only 2 losses in last 3 seasons; both teams had major comeback wins this season over a tough opponent (USC over Notre Dame, Texas over Ohio State); and both teams had Heisman Trophy candidates (USC had Matt Lienart, who won it last year and Reggie Bush, who won it this year. Texas had Vince Young, who was first-runner up this year.) I mean, what else can you add to that?

Usually bowl games are two things: unevenly matched and low scoring. There’s an old saying that “offense (the players who move the ball) win games, but defense (the players who try to stop the ball) wins championships. That’s why they are usually low scoring. But with USC vs Texas, both teams scored high and played great defense. And they were the most even match you could find in football this year. There’s another saying (sports are just full of sayings and golden nugget wisdoms) that football games are won and lost in the last two minutes. This being the most perfect game ever, you know it had to happen that way, too. It all came down to the end.

With about 6 minutes left in the game, Texas was behind by twelve points (38-26). The scratched and clawed and worked their way to a touchdown and extra point. So USC got the ball back with about four minutes left and they were still ahead 38-33. The game was their’s to lose at that point. All they had to do was burn time off the clock and keep possession. Just keep getting first downs. But Texas’ defense stepped up their game and with 4th down and 2 yards to go, they held USC back and kept them from a first down. Texas gets the ball back with two minutes left. The game is their’s to win. They have enough time to score, but they’ve got to make sure that if they do, they don’t leave USC enough time to do the same. But it looks like it’s not going to happen. USC’s defense is putting the pressure on Texas quarterback Vince Young something fierce. They’re not giving him a clear enough shot to connect with his receivers. It becomes do or die for Texas. It’s 4th down and 4 yards to go for another 1st down. He drops back to pass and gets pressured again. All his receivers are covered up. He can’t get a pass off. Then he sees a hole…not to pass, but to RUN. And boom! He shoots into the end zone. Forget the first down, it’s a TOUCHDOWN. Texas has come from twelve points behind to be one point ahead 39-38. Then they go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking for the extra point, and they succeed. 41-38, Texas. If you know anything about football, the success rate of two-point conversions is not high. But it was a smart thing to attempt, because with 17 seconds still on the clock, USC could still get into field goal range and kick for three. If Texas had not gone for the added two, and then USC kicked a field goal, then USC would win. This way, the worst that could happen is that they tie it up and it goes into overtime. Even though a lot can be done in 17 seconds..espeically a team as talented as USC, it was not enough. A pass that would have put them in field goal position was blocked by Texas…and game over. Number 2 Texas beats Number 1 USC, 42-38, breaking USC’s winning streak and dashing their hopes for a third National Championship and it all came down to the end.

It was weird watching this game. I started to get into it as much as if it was my UT (Tennessee) in their orange and white instead of being the other UT (Texas) in their (burnt) orange and white. I started getting the weird stomach, and had my shirt pulled over my head several times those last four minutes. Maybe it was because they were the underdogs and had more to prove than USC, but I was rooting for Texas. Not that I have anything against USC. All season long I have said they were the best team in college football–again. In fact, at the beginning of the year, before Tennessee began it’s freefall from the #3 ranking right behind USC and Texas, I worried about the prospects of what would happen if we would manage to take over the #2 spot and have to face USC. But, that worry was way premature.

For those of you who didn’t understand or care about any of this, just enjoy the pretty picture, okay? And take this game as evidence that, yes, a Longhorn can break a Trojan.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 2:19 am and is filed under football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.