9 memories from the all-time classic Texas-USC Rose Bowl, shared by Mack Brown and Matt Leinart

The losing quarterback in the greatest national championship game of the century now remembers that night a lot like you do. There’s still pain, but in the 11 years and seven months since Vince Young sprinted past the right pylon on a fourth-and-5 to deny USC a second BCS title in a row, Matt Leinart’s lingering sentiment isn’t grief.

“Every time the game gets brought up, I just think, ‘Man, what if?’” Leinart, now a Fox analyst says. “We were so close. We had the game won, and obviously they made the plays in the end, but you just felt like we kind of let the game slip away from us. Credit Texas. But that’s really what I think about. And then, as I’ve gotten older, I just think more about being a part of that game, just the history of it, and really thinking back and just thinking, ‘Wow.’ I think it’s the greatest game ever played in college football.”

Ahead of the first Texas-USC meeting since, SB Nation talked to Leinart and Texas’ head coach at the time, Mack Brown.

This was a unique title game, featuring two unbeaten teams that’d spent every week of the season as the No. 1 (USC) and 2 (Texas) teams in the AP Poll.

Brown:

One of our players took a shot at USC [weeks before the game]. ‘They’re not good,’ one of those kind of things. So when we got back home, we sat down with all of our players and said, ‘Look, they’re real good. They’ve got two Heisman Trophy winners [Leinart and Reggie Bush]. They’re averaging 50 points a game. So don’t look stupid. Don’t look like a fool. This is one of the best teams ever, if not the best team ever.’

We actually got a little theme that we would act like we were the story of Troy, and we were gonna be in the wooden horse, we were gonna slip into the city, and we were gonna keep our mouths shut. Then after the game was over, we could do our talking, if we had done our job, but let’s don’t be stupid enough to act like this isn’t a great team.

Leinart:

It’s only human nature to watch other teams play. And I know Texas and all their players, they wanted us bad and all that, but still, it was one game at a time for us. We had the Notre Dame game, Fresno State, we had a lot of games where it was looking pretty dicey there for a while, and we found a way to win. Texas had some games like that, too.

But naturally, just as competitors and teams, you’re always kind of keeping an eye on, ‘OK, if we get to the championship, who are we gonna play?’

Brown:

It was really a break for us in my estimation, looking back, that we played Michigan the year before in that stadium. [Texas won, 38-37.] We had the week of the Rose Bowl, so we knew what to expect. We stayed at the same hotel as we did the year before when we were playing Michigan, for USC. We practiced at the same practice fields. So the guys really had the routine down.

A hotel snafu led Brown’s team to leave its hotel the night before the USC game and spend the night in Burbank. But the Horns still did get a good night of sleep.

Leinart:

As quarterbacks, it’s a small fraternity, so you just respect the game. You respect other players at your position, and I was just so enamored with the way Vince played.

He was athletic. He was obviously really one of a kind. Mike Vick was kind of the quarterback that really came onto the scene as an athlete and a runner, but Vince was 6’5, 245 pounds, and ran kind of like that. He was the first of his breed, and it was really incredible to watch, and then obviously, we felt that in that game.

Holly Rowe, who worked the game as a sideline reporter at ABC, recalls that as Young was going onto the field for his first offensive possession, he “winks with this big grin and smile like, ‘I got this.’”

Young’s final line was 30-of-40 for 267 yards passing, with 19 carries for 200 yards and three touchdowns. Leinart was 29-of-40 for 365 yards, a touchdown, and an interception.

The two had spent a Heisman Trophy weekend together just before the Rose Bowl. They’d later do an ESPYs bit together.

Leinart:

We were just a lot of places together post-college and really got to be friends, and we’ve remained friends for the last 10, 12 years. We see each other every once in a while. We sat down a couple weeks ago and did a little feature for this game coming up this weekend. But any time I see him, man, it’s just like old buddies talking shop.

A few stand out: Young’s winning run with 19 seconds left, the Texas fourth-down stop that preceded it, and Bush’s fumble on an attempted lateral in the second quarter while USC was driving.

This one haunts Leinart:

USC led, 7-0, and threatened to go up more in the first quarter. Leinart got stacked up on a QB sneak on a fourth-and-1, with the Trojans well inside field goal range.

Leinart:

In that type of game, every possession matters, especially the way the second half was going, because it was just score, then they score, we score.

And that was a possession that we got no points on, and people kind of forget about that, but that was some play that always sticks out in my mind, that I just felt like I should’ve called time out. Even when I didn’t get it, I remember coming off the field just thinking, ‘God, we should’ve called time out.’ The coaches could’ve called time out, but I really felt like that was my job to do.

This was in the first quarter, not the third. But memories can blur when you’re playing in a game with about 73 memorable moments. Leinart didn’t have a lane, and Bush had motioned out of the backfield. That meant Bush wasn’t able to push Leinart over the line, as he famously did earlier that season at Notre Dame:

That’s when Texas stopped Trojans running back LenDale White on a fourth down, giving the ball to Young, down five.

Leinart:

You know, I think when they stopped us on that fourth down, when we were up. I think we were up four or five points. That’s when Vince had gone down and drove, and we really drove on them all game, and really the second half, and we were driving again, and we went for it on fourth down, and they stopped us with — what was it? — like two minutes left or something.

That’s when I don’t wanna say doubt crept in, but I was like, ‘This is when Vince is at his best,’ and we’ve seen it before. We saw it in the Rose Bowl the year before. You just kind of felt like whoever had the ball last was gonna win. And we got the ball back with like 20 seconds, but that’s when ...

Our defense played well, they had turnovers, but Vince was a dominant, dominant player, and he just made that play. You just had a feeling he was gonna run and do something special.

USC did have a problem. Young drove 56 yards to win.

Young finished with 467 total yards, a Rose Bowl record at the time. He was dominant on the ground and through the air, and his touchdown was iconic. Brown says it’s as special a night as Young ever had, but it doesn’t tell the whole story of UT’s night.

Brown:

We saw it a lot, and there were great players around him. That’s the other thing. Vince got so much credit in the Michigan game and that game, and he should’ve.

But you don’t have those performances unless you’ve got a great offensive line. He’s got Jamaal Charles that’s still playing, Selvin Young that played six games with the Denver Broncos. Four of those offensive linemen played a long time in the NFL. David Thomas, the tight end, played in two Super Bowls. That defense, I think just about everybody on the defense played in the NFL.

So it was a great team that was just led by Vince Young.”

Some of that’s evident almost 12 years later, when Leinart’s asked if he still thinks about any of the iffy calls that went against USC that night. Specifically, there’s this moment, which led to Texas’ first touchdown, but shouldn’t have: a Vince Young option pitch to Selvin Young, which came after Vince’s knee was clearly down:

There’s also The Reggie Bush Lateral, a pitch gone awry at the end of a long catch-and-run that led to a Texas fumble recovery in the second quarter. There’s some question as to whether Bush’s pitch wasn’t actually a forward pass.

Where he pitched it:

And where it wound up hitting a teammate:

But if any USC fans are angry about the officiating that night, they’re thinking differently than their QB.

Leinart:

Look, football is a funny sport. The ball can bounce your way one game. It doesn’t bounce your way the other game. Refs miss calls all the time. They get calls right. You can’t make excuses. Obviously, Vince’s knee was down, a hundred percent. We all know it. They know it. It doesn’t matter. It was a missed call. I’m sure we had some calls go in our favor. It is what it is. You can’t dwell on those plays.

There were a ton of great plays that were made that game from both teams. People say, ‘Why did Reggie lateral?’ I don’t even think he knows. He was a competitor trying to make a play in the heat of the moment, and it just happened. There’s not really an answer for everything sometimes, and nobody should be to blame. It was a great game from start to finish, and they just made one more play than we did.

The best evidence of USC’s grace in defeat is this note from Brown:

There was so much chaos on the field. I was trying to find Pete Carroll, and to his credit, he stayed out there, found me, and he said, ‘You never wanna lose any game, especially a national championship, but we lost to a true champion tonight in Texas. You’ve got a great team. Congratulations,’ which I thought was very classy.

For a sense of how wild the scene was on the field, ABC’s Rowe:

It got crazy it got hectic and it got really hectic. We were all mixed up. You kinda rush out there and all these people were kinda rushing out onto the field and I had had the Texas sideline the whole time and Matt Leinart was right by me and I had said to the producer, ‘Do you want me to get Matt? He’s right here.’ And he was gracious enough in that defeat to stop and give an interview with me. It was just really sweet of him and he could not have been a better sport and more gracious about that.

Brown:

When we got in the dressing room and I was getting ready to address the team, someone said, ‘There’s two guys at the door that wanna see ya.’ And I went to the door and it was Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. Both of them were saying, ‘Coach, we didn’t see ya on the field, and we wanted to congratulate you, ‘cause your team played great, and you’ve got a great team, and we didn’t wanna leave this stadium tonight without running you down.’ And I thought that was really, really classy.

The legendary Texas coach and his wife were at the game. After Texas won, Brown wanted Royal to join him onstage at midfield. His predecessor declined; Brown says Royal passed on a note that said, “This is your time, boy. You enjoy this. Not my time.”

Brown:

And then as we’re leaving the field, Missy, who’s probably in her 80s, there’s an equipment truck that had three national championships from Texas written on it, and she was on the ladder, in her 80s, putting a four over the three.

Keith Jackson called a lot of great games. SB Nation also spoke to three of his colleagues about how this game was some of his best work.

Leinart:

Keith Jackson, a legend obviously. He called the Rose Bowl Game a couple years before. He’s one of the best to ever do it, and I think when you’re 21, 20 years old, you don’t realize until — I’m 34 now — and I sit back, I’m like, ‘Yeah, to be a part of that game.’ Keith Jackson’s calling the game, and the people who are at the game, the people who watch the game, you really take it in as you get older.