"The way to win the National Championship...."

Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. Also, that 4th and 2 decision was a terrible call by Carroll. Of course you punt the ball and push them back to the 20 or further. The offense had already done their job by getting a couple of first downs and changing field position. The play call itself was equally bad. A predictable dive into the line.

So, that left Texas with a 2:09 on the clock and two timeouts to go 55 yards. If you consider that they needed 1:50 of that time, their last two timouts, a facemask penalty to get one first down AND STILL had to convert a 4th and 5 from the 8 to go the 55 yards and win the game against a tired defense who couldn't tackle, you can't tell me that an extra 25+ yards wouldn't have made a difference for USC. As someone else pointed out, Young hadn't completed a pass for more than 15 yards the entire night. While he's amazing, all of that scrambling takes time. Of course you make them go 80+ yards to beat you especially if they need a TD to win.

King is right in his specualtion about why Carroll didn't make it in the NFL with that mindset. As he stated, you can get away with that if you're a powerhouse college team playing against Whatever U but a few boneheaded moves like that in the NFL and you're out the door.

BTW, the offciating was TERRIBLE!!!!.

"2) On the next drive, UT intercepted the ball, but the play was ruled incomplete. I'm surprised, nobody's mentioned this so far. USC scored a field goal off of this drive."

No, Dan Fouts did a bad job with this. While the ground can't cause a fumble, a receiver or a person who is attempting to catch the ball must maintain possesion of it throughout the catch. IOW, the UT linebacker had the ball while he was in the air but when he hit the ground he lost possession. So, no interception.

The two worst calls were actually non-calls. The Vince Young knee down and the clear fumble by the UT receiver after he caught the ball and was stripped by the USC defender.

Bush is already a much better player than Desmond Howard ever was and he deserved the Heisman. While the Gale Sayers comparisons are flattering, he would be much better advised to patteren himself after another great - Marshall Faulk. He's about the same size, has the same skill set and is much faster and quicker. He won't be a franchise savior because, outside of QBs and dominating linebackers, other position players rarely are franchise players straight out of college.

Now, in terms of Young's pro prospects, he's a freakishly talented and exciting winner BUT he has a terrible and slow throwing motion. He needs a good QB coach beacuse he has yet to demonstrate he can make the "pro throws". That "top rater passer stuff" is misleading. Teams rightfully play him to run and are more than happy to give up a short completion. Getting drafted by a terrible team like the Texans would make good business sense for the team but might not be the best thing for Young. Also, people like to talk about how we've never seen such and such before and that's not quite the case. Folks compare Young to Vick but that not quite right. The better comparion would be that Young is a potentially much better version of the old Eagle QB - Randall Cunningham. The resemblance is errie. Both Tall, deceptively strong, lopingly fast, very strong but not that accurate arms, both rely on their legs to make plays, great wills to win and so on.

If I was a pro scout and had my choice of big time college QBs, my list would be (in order)

Brady Quinn - ND (future top NFL QB)

Matt Leinart - USC (I'm amazed at how much better he got this year, quicker release, better accuracy, reads, etc.)

Troy Smith - OSU (a true dual leg/arm threat)

Vince Young - TX (amazing player)

Yes I know that the clock stops on first downs in college but you can't assume that Texas would have scored from 80+ yards away as they did from 55 yards away. That is a rather significant difference. It's obvious that Carroll didn't trust his defense but that 4th and 2 call was terrible. As I said, his offense already did their job by getting first downs and running clock and changing field position. Time to punt. Exactly what is the downside to punting? You gain yards for your defense and force them to go the distance to beat you. If you go for it and make it, well you probably win. If you don't then you put yourself in a terrible position at midfield. The downside to going for it is much worse than punting.