11 years after their Rose Bowl, USC and Texas treated us to another thriller

People had widely varying sets of expectations for Saturday’s Texas-USC game in Los Angeles. Because while this was a matchup between a 17-point favorite and a team that gave up 51 points at home to Maryland two weeks ago, it was Texas and USC playing under the lights in a rematch of an all-time game.

It turned out to be better than most of us imagined. The No. 4 Trojans won, 27-24, but they needed two overtimes to do it. Texas used a bunch of gutsy fourth-down stops and defensive takeaways to keep USC close, and a freshman quarterback making his second career start almost delivered a massive upset. It didn’t happen that way, but the game was still awesome, so let’s count out some cool things about it.

Even the losing QB, Matt Leinart, thinks it was the best game ever, period. There’s never been a more thrilling national championship match than the one that culminated with Vince Young running past USC’s right pylon on a fourth-and-5 in January 2006. There might never be a better one again.

Vince Young, here with Matthew McConaughey:

Leinart, shaking hands with a USC receiver who’d just scored a TD in overtime:

Leinart’s now a Fox analyst and was working on the field, so he didn’t have to travel far.

USC tried three fourth-down conversions, and UT turned back all of them. All were well inside Texas territory, including one at the Texas 1-yard line in the fourth quarter. Relying on stops like that is not a sustainable long-term business strategy, but it says a lot about Texas that it didn’t wilt when USC pushed hardest.

Both teams scored touchdowns in the last half-minute.

Texas on a pick-six:

And USC on a 56-yard Ronald Jones II catch and run as time expired, which Texas never should’ve allowed to get close to happening but somehow did:

Texas went ahead for the first time when Sam Ehlinger found Armanti Foreman for a 16-yard touchdown. At that point, 46 seconds remained:

That was plenty of time for Sam Darnold and USC, who got all the way to the Texas 13 and got a Chase McGrath 31-yard field goal to bring up overtime.

Ehlinger, starting for an injured Shane Buechele, didn’t have glowing stats. He was 21-of-40 for 298 yards, two touchdowns, and two picks, which is the kind of line that says, “You moved the ball, but you were also erratic and kind of iffy all around.” Those things were true, but Ehlinger was as big-time as big-time gets on Texas’ last drive of regulation.

After squandering the previous drive with an interception deep inside USC territory, Ehlinger marched the Longhorns 91 yards in 14 plays to set up the Foreman touchdown with 16 ticks left. He converted two fourth downs on that drive, one with his legs and one with his arm. Had his defense held, it would’ve been a historic kind of drive.

Ehlinger told SB Nation back when he was just a rising recruit that he modeled his game after Cam Newton and Drew Brees. Any functioning hybrid of those two would be a Hall of Famer. Ehlinger didn’t have much in the way of rushing stats, but he was a dual threat who managed to crack a solid defense in a huge spot.

Ehlinger’s night ended when USC stripped him on a sneak attempt in the game’s second overtime, setting up a winning field goal. It’s a cruel game.

McGrath isn’t on scholarship. He hit the 31-yarder that forced overtime as regulation expired, and he followed that up by flushing a more challenging 43-yarder after the Ehlinger fumble in overtime. Motion to get Chase McGrath a scholarship.