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The Longhorns Are National Champions

Wow. Amazing. The Longhorns did it. Last night, the Texas Longhorns defeated the USC Trojans 41-38 to win the college football national championship. Not many people saw this coming. In reality, not many people thought this game would even be close. But some of us knew.

I think this win by the Longhorns last night proves a few things. First, we can now dispense with this “give Pete Carroll a month and he can beat the Indianapolis Colts” nonsense that I have heard endlessly in the past several weeks. It seemed as though every person who picked the Trojans (and there were a ton of them), decided to throw that line out there, as though giving Pete Carroll three extra weeks to prepare for a game meant the Trojans would win by thirty. Hogwash.

Second, it is now officially bunk to say Mack Brown can’t win the big game. Out here in Southern California, I was still hearing on AM sports radio that Mack Brown couldn’t win the big game in the lead up to last night’s game, as if last year’s Rose Bowl and this season’s visit to Ohio State didn’t count. Well, is ending a would-be dynasty a big enough win for you? Is defeating a team that was seemingly universally considered to be the greatest assemblage of college football players in the history of the game sufficient for your liking?

Third, ESPN has no idea what it’s doing. Running a series of shows asking whether this year’s USC Trojans could defeat some of the greatest college football teams from the last half century was a bad idea from the beginning. It was pointed out in a couple of articles on the web, though not many, that USC had not even won this year’s national championship, yet ESPN was asking how they would fare against the greatest champions of yesteryear. Well, that point is moot. They couldn’t even beat this year’s Texas Longhorns. By the way, when is the ESPN series going to air asking if this year’s Longhorns could beat these same former champions? Somehow I don’t think that’s coming.

Fourth, the wrong guy won the Heisman. With all due respect to Reggie Bush, Vince Young is the superior player. Every year some people call for the Heisman voting to take place after the conclusion of the bowl season. That certainly would have helped Vince this year. Those eye-popping runs against less athletic defenses carried Reggie Bush to the Heisman. Last night, Vince Young tore through the defense of a two-time defending national champion for 267 yards through the air and 200 yards on the ground. Reggie Bush had 95 yards receiving and 82 yards rushing. A nice game, but nothing compared to what Vince did. And the Heisman voters don’t have an excuse. They saw what Vince did to Michigan in last year’s Rose Bowl. They should have known this was coming.

Now, I have to be honest and say it’s not like we obliterated the Trojans or anything. We held on to win. If they had won, it would have been the same way. Both offenses outclassed the defenses. The one difference? Our defense was able to come up with the one big stop when we needed it. Theirs couldn’t.

And I don’t want to hear any second guessing of Pete Carroll choosing to go for it on 4th-and-2 late in the fourth quarter. Did anyone else see how LenDale White had been tearing through the Texas defense up to that point? Don’t ever forget that. I was certain USC was going to go for it. I feared it. I would rather they had punted it, because I knew our offense could score against their defense at will. USC had a choice. They could have one play to gain two yards with their offense against our defense. Or they could defend eighty yards with their defense against our offense. Which would you have chosen? If you were in your right mind, you would have chosen the USC offense against the Texas defense. They were raking us the whole second half. We got the one stop though. That’s what makes us national champions.

And the celebration commences, in the face of all the nay-sayers, no less. The guys on the Loose Cannons radio show who weren’t giving Texas a chance. The powers that be at ESPN who decided to assume the Trojans would stake their claim to college football immortality with an unprecedented three straight national titles. Anyone anywhere who said Mack Brown wasn’t up to turning back a dynasty. Well, it’s done. The Longhorns did it. And no one can take this year away from them. One of the greatest seasons in the history of this storied program. Texas 41, USC 38.