- 2 days ago
Vince Young
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:22Hi everybody, I'm Brian Kenney, and welcome to ESPN Classics' Top 5 Reasons You Can't
00:27Blame. January 4th, 2006, USC and Texas in the Rose Bowl, playing one of the most thrilling
00:33national championships in collegiate sports history. After five lead changes, a decisive
00:38moment came with 2-13 left in the game. Up 38-33, the Trojans faced a fourth and two on
00:44the Longhorn.
00:45USC coach Pete Carroll decided to go for it. Texas held, and 10 plays later, quarterback Vince Young
00:51took it in for the winning touchdown. Carroll has been second-guessed ever since. Had he decided to
00:56punt, say as critics, the Trojans might well have won a third straight national championship.
01:01In this show, we'll count down our top five reasons you can't blame Pete Carroll for USC losing to Texas
01:07in the 2006 Rose Bowl. But first, let's examine the case against him.
01:15Here goes Rindale, touchdown!
01:18To me, USC was the greatest, most dynamic, most balanced team in the history of college football.
01:24Touchdown!
01:25They had everything that they needed to have. They had, you know, they had the pass offense,
01:29and they had the run offense, and they had the run offense too deep.
01:32This is Rindale, wide up the middle, touchdown number 21!
01:36Every time I touched the ball, I felt like I could have scored.
01:40Reggie Bush to the corner!
01:43Arguably the top quarterback in the history of college football.
01:47Liner drops the throw, throws it down the sideline, and he makes the catch!
01:51You're not going to stop Matt Liner, Lindale White, Reggie Bush.
01:55Here comes Reggie Bush!
01:57Coming off the two straight national championships, the Heisman trophies, the undefeated string.
02:03If they beat Texas, they are the greatest college football team of all time.
02:09It was a heady time for USC.
02:12The Trojans were riding a 34-game winning streak and had won back-to-back national titles.
02:17Two of their stars, quarterback Matt Liner and tailback Reggie Bush, owned Heisman trophies.
02:23Greatness seemed too small a word for what they'd accomplished.
02:27As perhaps history's most heralded college football team rolled into the 2006 Rose Bowl,
02:33the consensus picked the Trojans to beat Texas and win a third straight national title.
02:38They were favored by seven and a half points.
02:41We definitely felt like we came out and played like we knew how we were going to blow this team
02:45away.
02:46That's it, baby. Let's get it down.
02:49Now it's put-up time!
02:51Texas, riding its own 19-game winning streak, played tougher than many expected,
02:57scoring 16 straight points in the second quarter.
02:59The Longhorns led by six at the half.
03:02Touchdown to Selvignon.
03:04In the second half, USC's vaunted offense gathered momentum
03:08and scored touchdowns on four straight possessions.
03:11Touchdown, USC.
03:13Handoff, White, up the middle.
03:14He's in the end zone.
03:15Touchdown, USC.
03:17Delayed handoff.
03:18Reggie going around the outside.
03:19He's got the 25-20, up the sideline.
03:21He's at the 10-5, dive.
03:23And it is a touchdown, USC.
03:26Leinert's 22-yard pass to Dwayne Jarrett put the Trojans up by 12
03:30with 6.42 left in the fourth quarter.
03:32The Longhorns' prospects were not bright.
03:36Game's over.
03:37Game's over.
03:38They'll make a run.
03:39They might score.
03:39They may kick a field goal.
03:40They're not going to win the football game at that point.
03:42We felt like we had them where we wanted them,
03:45and all we had to do was just maintain.
03:48Break out the championship hats and T-shirts.
03:51There's absolutely no way they lose that game when they're up by 12.
03:57The one thing I remember is glancing down on the sidelines and saying,
04:00OK, what's Vince doing now or whatever, and his head is bobbing around,
04:04and he just looks like he's still loosening up.
04:06And you're like, God, he doesn't get it.
04:08This game should be over now.
04:09That was a dynasty story we were all writing, the dynasty.
04:12As you're typing this, you're watching out of one eye.
04:17Vince Young going up and down the field.
04:19There he goes.
04:19Young looks the throw.
04:21Now starts back to the right side.
04:23He's got running work.
04:23Then puffs to the pointy.
04:2515, 10, 5.
04:26Touchdown Texas.
04:28Trojan's lead is 38-33.
04:30After Texas pulled within five,
04:32USC began working the clock with running plays.
04:35With 2-13 left,
04:37Carroll was faced with perhaps the toughest sideline decision of his career.
04:41It's going to be fourth and about two from the 45.
04:45I think he's going to go for it here.
04:47What a call it would be because that would give Texas a short field.
04:50Punt the ball.
04:52Kick the ball.
04:53When I saw him do that, I was like, punt the football.
04:55Punt the football.
04:56Fourth and two is a tough thing to get.
05:00You want to be national champion, and you're in this situation,
05:02I think you might want to punt.
05:04The risk is great.
05:04Fourth and two is different than fourth and one,
05:06which they'd failed to convert earlier in the game already.
05:09Carroll made the call.
05:10Go for it.
05:12Here's the ball game right here.
05:13Yes, sir.
05:14Here's the game right here.
05:15All in one nutshell.
05:16Reiner under center.
05:17He'll hand off to White.
05:19He didn't get it.
05:20The Longhorns stop it.
05:21At the 44-yard line.
05:23Texas is held, and the Longhorns take over.
05:26Are you kidding me?
05:28Following the Trojans' failure to convert on fourth down,
05:31Young stepped into the heat of the national limelight
05:33and proved himself worthy of all the Big 12 had been saying about him.
05:38If you were in the stadium, you knew what was coming.
05:41If you were sitting at home and watching, you knew what was coming.
05:44Looks.
05:44Fires to the right.
05:45Caught by Carter.
05:46At the 20.
05:46To the 15.
05:47Then with the ball on the USC 9 with 26 seconds left, Young took the snap.
05:52Fourth and five.
05:54The Trojans need a miracle.
05:55Vance looks.
05:56Under pressure.
05:57He'll tuck it in one.
05:58Vance to the five.
05:59Young.
05:59Touchdown, Texas.
06:01Touchdown, Vince Young.
06:02He's done it again.
06:04Vince Young has given the Longhorns the lead.
06:06As time expired, Carroll could only watch as Texas stormed the field in celebration of
06:12its 41-38 victory.
06:15The Texas Longhorns are college football's national champions.
06:21Although USC's incredible ride was over, the longest day after of Carroll's life began.
06:28What a stupendously controversial move that was.
06:31I didn't think it was a good call at the time, and I don't think it is now.
06:34If we punt the ball, there's more distance between him and victory.
06:41Maybe, maybe he runs out of time.
06:43If you punt the ball, make the other team go the length of the field.
06:47If there are 19 seconds left in the game, and he's 35 yards from the end zone, time for
06:53one play.
06:53You finally have an alley.
06:55If your defense can't stop, maybe the clock can.
06:58It's just this percentage move.
06:59Every good, solid NFL coach does that.
07:02I thought that was Pete Carroll.
07:04Hubris.
07:05Pete Carroll put himself into the state of mind that whatever I call is true.
07:12Not once did he say, you know what?
07:14Maybe that play's not going to work.
07:16Not only was Carroll vilified for making the call, he was ridiculed for not having the
07:21right man on the field.
07:22I fully expected Reggie Bush to, like, spin, dive, put a cape on and fly.
07:30And then all of a sudden you're like, where's, wait.
07:34Oh my God, he left Reggie Bush on the sidelines.
07:37You know, honestly, you know, I don't know why.
07:40I'm not exactly sure why.
07:42People ask me all the time why I was in the game.
07:44Where was Reggie Bush?
07:45The president of Troy.
07:47He wasn't on the field.
07:48Lendale was on the field.
07:50If nothing else, Reggie Bush can push him for the first down.
07:53He's shown he can do it.
07:54Oh, you've got to have Bush in there for the push, don't you?
07:58Reggie Bush was not on the field when Southern California needed a critical play.
08:04I don't understand why that happened.
08:06The slightest miscalculation cost them the Rose Bowl, cost them an unprecedented third national
08:14championship.
08:15One of the most egregious coaching errors of our time and space performed by Pete Carroll,
08:21it was not just a loss of a national championship.
08:24It was a loss to make some serious history.
08:32All right, you've seen the case against Pete Carroll.
08:35Now, before we give you our top five reasons why you can't blame him, here are a few reasons
08:39that didn't make the short list.
08:41We call them the best of the rest.
08:44After further review.
08:46First down, Texas.
08:49Young's got it, going to run it.
08:51In a perfect world, Carroll would never have had to make that call.
08:54Way back in the second quarter, Texas scored when Young lateraled as he was being tackled.
09:00He pitched it out.
09:01Looked like he might have been down, didn't it?
09:03Yeah, he did.
09:04He went down on one knee and pitched it forward to the running back, went into the end zone
09:10for a touchdown, and there was no replay of it.
09:13He's down.
09:14They're going to have to check this one out, take these points off the board.
09:17And it was very clearly down ball, dead ball, and a foul because his knee was on the ground
09:23and the ball was pitched forward.
09:24And we couldn't find out why there was no replay.
09:28Can't believe they're not reviewing this one.
09:31This is huge.
09:33That was too big a moment, too big a ball game, too big an audience to let things like that
09:38happen.
09:41Another best of the rest, the Rose Bowl.
09:44And gets it, and it's good.
09:46Unbelievable.
09:48No.
09:50In the 2005 Rose Bowl against Michigan, Texas trailed 37-35 with three minutes to go.
09:57Not to worry.
09:58Young took over on his own 32 and marched the Longhorns down the field for the game-winning
10:03field goal.
10:05Good.
10:06Texas win.
10:08If Pete Carroll punts in that situation, it's deja vu going back to the Rose Bowl from the
10:12previous year when Michigan watched Young win the game.
10:16He had done it in the same venue, in the same situation the year before.
10:22Pete knew that.
10:23Pete Carroll was shook by what he had seen the previous year.
10:27For it to play out the same way it did, had to get in his head.
10:31He's human.
10:32Vince Young's not.
10:34If you're Pete Carroll in getting ready for this game, you've seen Vince Young do this
10:39before.
10:40On fourth and two, you have to go for it and not give him another opportunity to beat you.
10:48Student body left, student body right.
10:51The Trojan tradition of ground dominance.
10:55Student body right simply means this.
10:56We're all going that way.
10:58It is the entire student body running right.
11:00And we didn't have a problem telling you that we were running right and we'd still run it.
11:04Sounds pretty simple.
11:05You get a great back with some 300-pound linemen, throw a little pitch the ball out one way,
11:11you know, left or right, and nobody's going to stop you.
11:14Probably no college football team has carried the ball more effectively than USC.
11:18You immediately think of O.J. Simpson slicing and dicing through the UCLA defense.
11:25Simpson at the 10, 5, touchdown, USC!
11:27I heard all the stories about run to daylight with Vince Lombardi and all that.
11:32This was run to nothing.
11:34There's nobody out there.
11:34It just would zip down the field.
11:36If it was John McKay, he would have yelled across.
11:39He would have said, we're going student body left right now.
11:43Good luck.
11:44It was this idea that we're bigger than you are and we're better than you are and we're
11:50just going to run you over.
11:52Got it.
11:53Out to outside with it.
11:54Runs over.
11:55Jackson.
11:55With two-star running backs and a massive offensive line, USC dominated the ground game
12:01like Trojan teams of the past.
12:03He does, and he's locked out a lot of green.
12:05Say goodbye, Ricky Bush.
12:07There he goes.
12:07Carroll's decision to go for it on fourth and two was made with tradition and talent at his back.
12:13This is a team that almost 50% of the time throughout the year went for it on fourth downs.
12:18There was no other decision to be made.
12:20You almost hear Carroll thinking, this is what we do.
12:24You've seen us go do that in the past, and our way of thinking is you're going for it
12:29all the time.
12:29If you're going to make one play for the championship, you're comfortable as a coach at USC running
12:34the ball for a couple yards.
12:35Based on the history of running backs at USC, Pete Carroll had no reason to think that Lindale
12:41White wasn't going to come through in the big situation when he needed to.
12:47One down, four to go.
12:49Here is reason number four.
12:53The streak.
12:5738 yards out for a Cal victory.
13:00It is good, and Cal pulls the upset.
13:08After losing to Cal 34-31 in triple overtime September 27, 2003, the Trojans went on a tear.
13:17Based on his history with a team that had won 34 in a row and had always come through when
13:23they needed to in the big situation, there was absolutely no reason to think, if you
13:28were Pete Carroll, that your team wasn't going to come through again.
13:32For basically the better part of three years, every decision that Pete Carroll had made had
13:38gone absolutely right.
13:39It had fallen into place.
13:41If you believe in your team, and you've seen the things they've done over and over and over
13:48again, then you believe in that gamble, because these guys, I mean, it was like they had magic
13:53dust.
13:53They could just sprinkle on the scene, and they could write the perfect ending.
13:58Leiners stacked at the 15, and there are two plays left for the Trojans' national championship
14:02dream.
14:03Never was the Trojans' power of faith more evident than in the epic battle at Notre Dame
14:08in 2005.
14:09With a minute and a half left in the fourth quarter, USC trailed 31-28.
14:16It seems impossible.
14:18You need three points in the next minute, 32 seconds, and you're 60, make it 74 yards
14:23away.
14:24Fourth and nine at the 26.
14:26He throws, looking for Jarrett.
14:28It's caught by Jarrett, the 40, 35-30, 25-20, tackled from behind.
14:33After converting on fourth down, Carroll elected to go for glory.
14:37Leiners sneaks towards the goal line, he's in the end zone, touchdown, USC!
14:42With three seconds to go!
14:44The Trojans have scored!
14:46That game's over.
14:48No matter what the situation, they seem to win.
14:51I think what happened is Pete Carroll believed in his kids because his kids continued to do
14:55the impossible.
14:56He has to go for it, for one reason, because he knows he's going to make it.
15:01He'd never been in a situation where it hadn't always come up roses.
15:07You can blame the streak if you want, because the streak gave Pete Carroll ultimate confidence
15:13in his team.
15:18Bush whacked, or bad timing.
15:20With USC leading 7-0 early in the second quarter, Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush caught
15:26a screen pass from Matt Leiner at midfield.
15:29Set it up for Bush.
15:30Whoa, look out!
15:31And suddenly, at the end of the run, he laterals to some guy no one ever heard of.
15:38Ball fumbled!
15:40Texas has got it!
15:41That was just in the heat of the moment.
15:43It was me trying to be a playmaker, and in big games like that, you know, you can't afford
15:47to do that, especially when you're playing against a team like Texas.
15:50That's crazy.
15:51That's so far out of line with the way we think and perform that I can't even tell you how
15:55to, I can't even imagine how to explain that one.
15:58That was a fundamental error that they don't make.
16:02Lateral at the end of a long run?
16:04To some schmegaggy who no one knows?
16:07It was some, I don't even know who he had lateral to.
16:09Again, I don't think Pete Carroll knew who that guy was.
16:11I don't think Pete Carroll had waved a wand and said, Reggie, lateral that ball as we're
16:16going in for a score.
16:18He's trying to lateral the ball is what he was doing, Keith.
16:21He saw a teammate out to the side, and he's got to be upset with himself for that bonehead
16:26play.
16:27Trojans lost the ball, and Texas went down to score.
16:29If you figure Essie comes away with at least a field goal, done.
16:33There's no way Texas can come back.
16:37You know, they scored off of it, so it was a big momentum swinger for them.
16:40That was the game.
16:41It wasn't the fourth and two.
16:43It was the lateral from hell that killed Troy that day at the Rose Bowl.
16:50Wow.
16:52Have we begun to change your mind yet?
16:53If not, take a look at reason number two.
16:56Texas was invincible.
16:58Upside in to the five.
17:01Vince Young's touchdown tackle.
17:03I asked Mack Brown after the game if he was surprised that he went for it, and he said
17:07no.
17:08He said because they couldn't stop us no matter where we got the ball.
17:11And Vince Young throws, and it is from David.
17:15Vince Young's performance in the 2006 Rose Bowl ranks among the most brilliant in college
17:20football.
17:21He was on his way to a Rose Bowl record 467 yards, 200 on the ground, and 267 in the
17:28air.
17:29Harrell was well aware of what Young might do.
17:32He knew if he gave it back to Vince Young, there was going to be a percent chance he was
17:36going to score, whether it's 80 yards away or 60.
17:38You know, everybody says that, oh, well, if you had just punted the ball anywhere to go
17:4290 yards, he would have made it 90 yards.
17:44You could have punted him 90 yards, and Vince Young may have still scored.
17:46It looked like electric football.
17:49One giant man standing there, and four or five people leaping at his knees and not able
17:56to bring him down.
17:58I don't think you can question the call because Pete's thinking was, I don't want the ball
18:03back in his hands to decide the game.
18:05To win the game, the only thing USC could have done was to stop Vince Young, and that
18:09wasn't going to happen.
18:10Why you made it?
18:11It's just real simple.
18:12It's really simple.
18:13Whether they get it there or we try to kick it down there and kick it 20 yards farther,
18:17it ain't going to make a big difference.
18:18Here's Vince Young, wants to run it, gets outside, and his first man didn't get it.
18:23He's seen they're not going to stop this guy, and he's seen Lendale White plow up the middle
18:26all day.
18:27And I'm sure he talked to his coordinator saying, what's going to change?
18:31Now what?
18:32Can we stop V.Y.?
18:33And they probably said no.
18:41The only thing that could have stopped Vince Young was Lendale White getting the first
18:44down on fourth and two.
18:45That's, to me, the only thing that could have stopped him.
18:51Michael Huff.
18:53What?
18:55On that fourth and two play, there was one player most responsible for shutting it down,
19:00and that was Michael Huff, the safety for Texas.
19:03Huff had won the Thorpe Award as the best defensive back in the nation.
19:08That is Huff.
19:09He'll take it to the house.
19:11A four-year starter, Huff emerged as Texas' top defensive playmaker.
19:16He smelled big moments and reacted on instinct.
19:20USC had run the exact same play three times for touchdowns earlier in the game with Lendale
19:26White.
19:27Michael Huff got an impulse, did something he hadn't done all the game in safety, and he
19:31just jumped into the play and kind of messed it up.
19:35And he came from somewhere that the guards hadn't seen, and he bottled it up.
19:40And it's funny, because I remember Lendale White saying afterwards, he wasn't supposed to
19:43be there, but he reacted, and that blew it up.
19:46Nine guys in the box, and the Texas Longhorns had a great surge on that one.
19:52Huff saw something, reacted, and just said, all right, well, if we're going to lose, this
19:55is the way it's going to be.
19:56And he basically won the national championship for Texas.
20:01If he doesn't make that play, SC controls the ball and probably runs the clock out.
20:07If he doesn't make that decision to attack the line of scrimmage, you know, 35 and roll
20:13in the three national titles, he can walk the streets of Austin, Texas.
20:16He's a god among men.
20:22No matter how you view Pete Carroll's decisions in the 2006 Rose Bowl, there's no doubt he's
20:28led USC back to national prominence.
20:30In the five years prior to his arrival, the Trojans were 31 and 29.
20:35In his first five years in Los Angeles, USC is 54 and 10 with two national championships.
20:42I'm Brian Kenney.
20:44Thanks for watching.
Comments