Rose Bowl - simply the greatest game of football I have ever seen
Did you see the Rose Bowl? I mean, did you SEE the Rose Bowl? Man oh man, this Vince Young, the quarterback for Texas, was absolutely astounding playing perhaps the greatest individual game anybody has ever seen as he rallied his team for a late victory in a wild shootout. 'There will never be a better game in the Rose Bowl,' Texas coach Mack Brown said.
Maybe, but, that was a year ago. So what have you done for me lately, Vince? Well, after just watching the 2006 Rose Bowl, Vince Young's performance at the 2005 Rose Bowl has quickly become the second greatest individual game ever. You can slice it and you can dice it. But no matter how you cut it, the simple truth is this; Vince Young is God.
One year after number-four ranked Texas beat Michigan 39-38 in one of the most memorable Rose Bowls of all time, they came back to Pasadena looking for an encore. But this time around Texas were a perfect 12-0 and the number-two ranked team in all of college football. Their opponents were the University of Southern California Trojans, also 12-0 and the number one ranked team. This was history waiting for posterity to record it.
It was a match-up of two traditional football powerhouses that was so enticing it was inevitable the hype-machine would try to oversell it. There was no way this game could live up to the hype. No way. Still, this is why we watch sports. Occasionally, we will see something special, something memorable and if we are lucky something for the ages.
But rarely will we see a game and a transcendent performance that stops you in your tracks, a game that defines your existence, as in where were you when so and so played so and so? Certainly, all the elements were aligned for just such a game. USC came into the Rose Bowl riding a 34 game winning streak and a chance to become the first team ever to win three straight national championships. In typical southern California style, there was also no shortage of star power on the USC squad with quarterback Matt Leinart, the 2004 Heisman trophy winner, playing in the same backfield as running back Reggie Bush, the 2005 Heisman trophy winner.
Texas not only had the scintillating Young, desperately upset about losing the Heisman to Bush, but a number of All-American performers on defence who would give Reggie and Matt by far their biggest test. It all looked good but this would not be the first time a marquee match-up failed to sizzle and in these days of media saturation one could only wonder if the Rose Bowl would fizzle. In reality, this game had the potential to be as big an event as the first Ali-Frazier fight. But Ali and Frazier fought back in the early '70s before the advent of satellite TV and the internet and before the voracious 24-hour news cycle was upon us.