No. 4 USC went down to the wire against Texas on Saturday night, in what turned out to be a thrilling rematch of the 2006 Rose Bowl game, the Trojans winning 27-24 in double overtime. In the game’s first OT, Trojans quarterback Sam Darnold found Deontay Burnett in the end zone to strike first. After the score, Burnett epically celebrated by shaking former USC quarterback Matt Leinart’s hand in the end zone.
Watch this USC WR shake Matt Leinart’s hand after scoring an overtime TD vs Texas
I love this so much.
Leinart, who was honored on the field after the first quarter of Saturday night’s game, was the Trojans’ quarterback for that ‘06 Texas-USC game. SB Nation caught up with the former Heisman trophy-winning quarterback ahead of the game:
Here’s him talking about facing off against Texas QB Vince Young:
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.
And here’s Leinart talking about the final minutes of that game:
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.
Shout out to Burnett for giving us this spectacular post-USC touchdown move. It probably was a special scene for Leinart to see his Trojans team win in a thrilling rematch of an epic game he was a part of.
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