OK, I’ll admit it. I am a Reggie Bush convert.
Yeah, I know. Being a Reggie Bush convert is like admitting you finally like Caribbean beaches. But my conversion was reluctant, particularly in regards to last year’s absurd Bush For Heisman discussion.
His 2004 numbers were absolutely ordinary. He rushed for a mortal-like 69.8 yards a game. He caught 3.3 passes per game. He did score 15 touchdowns, which made the highlight CD of every Heisman voter, but he reminded me a lot of Notre Dame’s Raghib Ismail in 1990.
They were both spectacularly talented players with numbers way too average to be considered the best player in the country. Brigham Young’s Ty Detmer deserved the Heisman in 1990, and Matt Leinart, Bush’s Southern California teammate, deserved it last year.
This year it’s different.
I have seen USC twice in person, and I know what converted me. It wasn’t the play at Oregon where rover Patrick Chung and cornerback Justin Phinisee closed right in front of him and Bush juked so fast he split both defenders without getting touched on a 38-yard run. It wasn’t the play later in the fourth quarter when he ran around left end to the sideline, found no room, reversed field and outran the entire Oregon defense down the sideline for an 11-yard touchdown, again untouched.
It wasn’t Saturday at Notre Dame where he cut left through a hole, cornerback Ambrose Wooden came in for the tackle, Bush effortlessly leaped over him and went 36 yards for the game’s first score.
It’s the way USC is using him. Bush has gone from a dangerous threat, a weapon used as much to unnerve a defense as to attack it, to a dangerous every-down back who is becoming one of the most productive players in the country.
He’s averaging 126.8 yards rushing a game, seventh nationally, and already has scored 11 touchdowns, two via reception. He’s averaging an obscene 8.8 yards a carry. That’s almost a first down per handoff. Leinart’s dramatic fourth-and-9 pass to Dwayne Jarrett and winning touchdown sneak won the headlines at Notre Dame, but Bush’s three touchdown runs saved the game.
If top-ranked USC makes history and wins a third consecutive Associated Press national title – who would bet against it at this point? – Bush will be a huge reason.
“We’re going to him more,” USC coach Pete Carroll said on Tuesday’s Pacific 10 conference call. “Just by the way he applied himself in the offseason, the strength he gained in all ways made him a better player. He’s so productive, it’s hard not to give him the football.”
With the numbers as a foundation, what tailback and teammate LenDale White of Denver calls “mad, crazy speed” is what will land Bush atop most Heisman ballots. He has gained 761 yards. I firmly believe if USC played flag football he would probably still have 760. Forget tackling him. No one touches him.
As Washington State coach Bill Doba once said, “If you’ve got a linebacker covering him, you might as well start singing their fight song.”
Linebackers often are. When famed offensive coordinator Norm Chow left for the NFL, USC’s offense didn’t regress. It expanded. New coordinator Lane Kiffin started moving Bush all over the field, to places defensive coordinators never saw him a year ago.
They put him at wide receiver, in motion out of the backfield, at I-back, clear off to the side behind the tackle. They release him into pass routes.
“You talk to most coaches, the hardest thing is to identify where he’s at and what plays they’ll run,” said Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter, who watched Bush gain 110 yards to back White’s 197 in USC’s 38-28 comeback win over the Sun Devils. “And you watch him, whether it’s me as a coach, you in the media or fans in the stadium, what he can do with the ball in his hands is gifted. He reminds me of a Gale Sayers. He does things with the ball other people can’t do.”
With only two ranked teams left on USC’s schedule – UCLA at home and a fading Cal – and the way Bush is being used, my Heisman bet right now goes to Bush. After all, I don’t think I’m the only one he has converted.
The fall of Utah
Can you believe Utah is playing for the Mountain West cellar Saturday? It’s true. Last year’s 12-0, fifth-ranked Utes are now 3-4 overall and 1-3 in league and a loss at Nevada-Las Vegas from going into last place.
I’m not surprised. New coach Kyle Whittingham was set up for a fall. He lost 94 percent of his offense – including the top pick in the NFL draft – and seven starters on defense. Urban Meyer often groused last year about his lack of depth. Now we know what would have happened last year if Utah hadn’t stayed healthy.
But few teams collapse late in games as Utah does. In the four losses, the Utes were outscored 45-9 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Depending on which growing number of critics you talk to, Whittingham either is not working the team as hard as Meyer or running them too much and they’re running out of gas.
It probably hasn’t helped that his new offensive coordinator is Andy Ludwig, who wore out his welcome at Oregon before jumping to coach under his good buddy Whittingham.
It’s a new Texas Tech
I can’t rule out an upset in Austin on Saturday when 10th-ranked Texas Tech visits No. 2 Texas. Besides a new-found defense that’s 18th nationally, the Red Raiders will have a better mind-set than before last year’s 51-21 drubbing.
They were so cocky after drilling Nebraska 70-10, they lost their focus. Coach Mike Leach has buttoned their lips since the Texas loss, and they have gone 10-1 since. This week only quarterback Cody Hodges and cornerback Khalid Naziruddin were available for interviews.
“It got to be a distraction,” Leach told ESPN.com. “Guys were thinking the most important part of their job was giving interviews rather than making plays.”
Footnotes
Add Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey to the hot-seat list. Athletic director Dave Braine wants improvement on last year’s 6-5 mark, and the 4-2 Yellow Jackets have Miami, Clemson, Wake Forest, Virginia and Georgia left. … Banged-up Connecticut is down to its third quarterback, true freshman Dennis Brown. … Who thought Louisville would be 0-2 and half a game out of last place in the Big Least?
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
