Los Angeles – The burden of history can be a heavy yoke to carry, particularly when your sport dates to the horse and buggy and you can establish its longest dynasty of the modern era.
But regardless of how much pressure the top-ranked Southern California Trojans feel – and through a 34-game win streak they have shown all the stress of a beach bar house band – it isn’t nearly as heavy as another team’s role.
The team that tries to change history.
That is the burden second-ranked Texas (12-0) carries into the Rose Bowl today. The Longhorns must stop USC (12-0) from winning an unprecedented third consecutive national championship by stopping what historians are calling the best offense in college football history.
USC’s last 34 opponents couldn’t do it. Seven of the 12 this season gave up at least 50 points. One NFL scout says 40 players on the USC roster will play in the NFL. The key to the game is how USC’s more mortal defense stops Texas quarterback Vince Young – merely because no one believes anyone can stop USC’s offense.
“Watching the game film, it’s like this is a highlight tape,” Texas linebacker Rashad Bobino said. “This is not a game film. Watching Reggie Bush running over people, Matt Leinart squeezing through holes, Dwayne Jarrett, LenDale White running through people, tight ends dragging and the guards – oh, my God! – taking linebackers and just throwing them 15, 10 yards back. Looking at them it’s like, ‘This is a team?’ Man, I see why they’re No. 1 in the nation.”
Only two years ago, Texas Tech averaged more yards than USC’s nation-leading 580.2 of this season. But no team in history has been more balanced at these high-rent numbers. The Trojans average 316.0 yards through the air and 264.2 on the ground. Pick your poison.
Oregon led USC 13-10 at halftime and Arizona State led 21-3. Both essentially put their fingers in the dike. Oregon wound up losing 45-13 and ASU fell 38-28.
“You try to change it up, but it starts by trying to stop the run game,” Arizona State defensive coordinator Bill Miller said. “If you don’t stop that – which we couldn’t do – it’s over.”
That will be Texas’ strategy. The Longhorns plan to force the game into the hands of Leinart, last season’s Heisman Trophy winner. It may not seem to make sense to count on stopping a Heisman-winning quarterback, but it’s the only option teams have found that makes sense.
Leinart has thrown for 3,450 yards and 27 touchdowns and was a Heisman finalist, but he has had slow starts, if that means anything. Besides, USC is sixth nationally in rushing. Opponents not only must stop White’s bruising 98.2 yards a game, but Bush averages 138.2. Then there is Bush’s all-purpose threat – just ask Fresno State, which saw him compile 513 yards rushing, receiving and returning.
Bush makes USC impossible to prepare for, like waiting for a flash flood but not knowing which window it will come through. The Trojans line him up at tailback and H-back, at wide receiver and in the slot.
“The bottom line for us was knowing where Reggie Bush was, that’s the key,” Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti said. “You know that children’s book, ‘Where’s Waldo?’ That was kind of our cry throughout the week.”
For the past month, Texas has practiced with Jamaal Charles, its leading rusher among tailbacks, and versatile Ramonce Taylor imitating Bush. They’ve contemplated putting one defender, a “spy,” shadowing Bush everywhere. But, as Texas defensive coordinator Gene Chizik said, “If the guy is that good that you’re spying him, he’s probably better than your spy guy.” That’s why, he said, “We’ve got to have 11 guys spying this guy.”
Bush is the best in America in the open field and likely will become the No. 1 player in the NFL draft this spring because of a full-speed change of direction no one in football can match.
With USC boasting an underrated offensive line that has allowed only 14 sacks and hasn’t missed a start all season, Bush is in the open field a lot.
“We’re relying on a lot of help from our friends,” said Chizik, who, counting his previous stint at Auburn, has won 27 straight. “He’s hard to tackle in the open field with one guy or two guys or three guys. That’s what we’ve talked about for the last month: How are we going to corral this offense? It’s going to be very important we stay alive.”
As Arizona State and Oregon learned, early success doesn’t mean 60-minute success. Keep in mind USC coach Pete Carroll is a magician at halftime adjustments, so stopping Bush and Leinart for a half is only good for bragging rights.
In the third quarter, the Trojans have outscored opponents 164-35.
“Their numbers got to us in the second half,” Aliotti said. “They’re playing about three tight ends, about five receivers, two fullbacks and two running backs with LenDale and Bush. We were so spent at halftime.”
But, Aliotti said, “The good news is Texas has those athletes, too.”
True. Texas has the nation’s fifth-ranked defense with All- Americans in safety Michael Huff and tackle Rodrique Wright. The Sporting News in the preseason ranked Texas’ secondary as the best in the country, and Texas held three of its last four opponents to fewer than 270 total yards.
Then again, the Big 12 doesn’t have the offensive firepower of the Pacific 10. Look at Texas’ schedule, and the best quarterback the Longhorns faced likely was Texas Tech’s Cody Hodges. Have the Longhorns faced anyone like Bush?
Even Bevo laughs at that one.
Besides USC’s offense, Texas is a 7-point underdog because USC’s defense tops the nation in turnover margin (plus-1.83), and the Longhorns must pull the upset in the Trojans’ backyard. USC hasn’t lost in Southern California in 27 games dating to 2001, or back when Texas actually lost to Colorado.
Texas coach Mack Brown pooh-poohed the home advantage, saying, “It’s the same atmosphere they had at Ohio State. There were 106,000 and 100,000 of them were against us and there was another 100,000 outside, and it was fun.”
But Ohio State didn’t have Leinart, Bush and White. And no one in modern history has won three national titles in a row. USC has history going against it. Texas has USC going against it. We all learn tonight which is a tougher foe.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
