If asked the question “Who is the best college football quarterback of the 21st century,” there are plenty of directions you could choose to go. And then there's the right direction.
ESPN did not go the right direction.
On a recent episode of the “4th and 1 Show,” former Heisman Trophy and National Championship winning quarterback Cam Newton reacted to a recent list originally posted on ESPN of the top college quarterbacks since 2000. Newton himself was listed at #2, behind only Oklahoma Sooners Heisman winner Baker Mayfield. But Newton, like myself, had a different #1 in mind.
Cam Newton went in the right direction, because Cam Newton selected Texas Longhorns legend Vince Young.
.@CameronNewton reacts to ESPN’s list of top college football QBs since 2000 pic.twitter.com/SxCpg9vFdc
— 4thand1show (@4thand1show) March 2, 2024
“Rose Bowl!” Newton said emphatically when beginning his defense of why VY was his choice. And really, that's all that needed to be said. “What he was able to do that game, no moment was ever too big for him.”
No it wasn't. And make no mistake, the 2006 Rose Bowl was a moment. It was the biggest college football game in my lifetime between two of the best college football teams I've ever seen. For a second, consider the stakes:
-USC and Texas entered the season as the #1 and #2 teams in the country respectively. They stayed that way all season long. USC was the defending National Champions, and Texas had won the Rose Bowl the season prior in a thriller over Michigan. There was no other team in the NCAA that should've been playing in this game. The Trojans and the Longhorns were in a class by themselves.
-This was one of the rare occasions in sports where the pre-game build-up was primarily focused on the fact that it was one of the most highly anticipated college football games ever. A matchup of this caliber comes along maybe once every decade.
-USC entered the game on a 34-game winning streak and were 7-point favorites at kickoff. Reggie Bush was the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. Matt Leinart had won the Heisman the season prior, and had never lost a game in his college career. On both sides of the ball, the Trojans were absolutely loaded.
Now consider that with all of that build-up, the game itself actually manages to surpass the hype. The game would go on to win the ESPY for Best Game in 2006. I'd argue that even nearly twenty years later, it's the greatest college football game I've ever watched, and that was in large part because on that night, Vince Young turned in a performance that requires hyperbole. For three and a half hours, VY was in God Mode. Sports Illustrated called VY's heroics, “the most stunning bowl performance ever.” And appropriately, on that very cover of Sports Illustrated just a few days after the game, it was a shot of Young diving toward the pylon, with a perfectly simple caption: “Superman.”
For the game, Young accumulated 267 passing yards, 200 rushing yards, and 3 rushing touchdowns. But I swear to you, the numbers alone don't do the performance justice.
Trailing 38-26 and getting the ball back with 6:42 left in the game, Young orchestrated two scoring drives that were capped by two of his three touchdown runs. In between those two scoring drives, the Longhorns defense one crucial stop, forcing a turnover on downs after USC running back LenDale White was stopped short of the line to gain. As soon as the ball went back to Vince Young, the game was all but over.
I'll be the first to admit that the Vince Young's performance in the 2006 Rose Bowl is one of those topics that I can't speak on without bias. I still own, and occasionally wear, a burnt orange Vince Young jersey, and I go out of my way once a year to rewatch the game — up until a few years ago, I still busted out the VCR and VHS tape to watch it, but it's on YouTube in its entirety, and if you're a young football fan who hasn't watched this game before, I implore you to check it out at some point over the next couple of months when the doldrums of the football offseason are keeping you down.
The way that many old-head hoops fans believe that nobody will ever come along to top Michael Jordan… that's how I feel about Vince Young. There will never be a college football quarterback who felt more inevitable and more invincible that VY.
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