SUPERMAN!!!

The game started out ugly, with Texas fumbling a punt after forcing SC 3-and-out on its first posession. The rest of the first half was missed calls, muffed plays and general nervousness from most involved. Then we ate a burger, slugged a few beers and settled in for the greatest half in the history of college football. The second half opened with a whirlwind of offense. (Think David Cross' bit about the difficulty of living in New York City, "there's the most beautiful girl in the world, and there's the craziest person I've ever seen in my life!") Where do you look?! So much spectacle, so little time. And we are not myopic homers of the Burnt Orange. We can appreciate the greatness of SC's offense. After a very sluggish first half in which he looked extremely uncomfortable and very Un-Matt, Leinart directed the Trojans' offense with extreme precision, a laser passing arm and a deft touch. At halftime his stock looked to have dropped to almost 10th-pick-in-the-draft status, but by the end of the 4th quarter he was right back up there near the top. Right back up by you know who.

After the SC touchdown, UT got the ball back with 6:42 remaining. Ours heads were hung slightly, we were pushing a chip through some crusty queso, thinking of how it is always so heartbreaking and final the way seasons end for sports teams (trust us, we know of what we speak after personally suffering through being at the World Series this year) And then, one of our nicest, most humble, altruistic, sweetheart-of-a-guy, friends walked through the middle of our party and very non-chalantly said, "Don't worry, boys. Plenty of time left. This thing ain't over." We looked up, caught his profile as he, per usual, made his way out of the party a little early, and WE BELIEVED! Hell, go down and score, then stop em and score again. No problem. Just give the ball to Supah!

Fortunately for us, Pete Carroll and SC dropped back into a soft zone coverage and more or less let us push the ball down the field on the next posession. (Hello, Peter. 1992 Houston Oilers ring a bell? Oh, that's right, you are probably desperately trying to forget the NFL ever existed.) After an amazing drive by Vince, Texas went on D. We were confident that with 3 times-out (thank you, Keith Jackson, you old dog, you) that we could stop them (hopefully) and get the ball back, with a bit of time, having called our timeouts on D. But, looky looky, Mack Brown apparently knows more than we do. He conserver his TO's on SC's first set of downs, which worked wonderfullly, considering they got a first down and our spent TO woulda been a waste, and then he preserved them still until after their following 3rd down. Beautiful. He knew that VY only needed about 2 minutes to take the troops down the field.

Fourth down and the national championship were staring everyone in the face. It was Go Time. Carroll played the percentages. We were all begging him to punt the ball, because with White and Bush in the backfield, two yards seemed almost a given. But then, where was Reggie? On the sideline? They're going big. We're going bigger! Texas stuffed the boys at the line, even getting a litte help from a fumble, but almost screwed by a terrible spot from the officials.

It was our ball and look who's back on the field. V-Y-T, easy as one-two-three. We knew it was our time. And although we have been skeptical of whether Vince really had it in him to be elite, to be as good as he thought he was, by the time he took the snap to start the last possession of the game, we believed. We sat back in awe and watched the greatest 2 minutes in UT athletic history. We are not going to go with a blow-by-blow of the final two minutes. You can get that from real journalists. But we know it involved David FREAKING Thomas being a man. The Texas O Line being manlier and Vince Young being something cut straight out of Olympus. On 3rd and something, we yelled "Facemask, Facemask!!" and they actually called it. Things were going our way; it just seemed right. And then, somehow, inexplicably, after making great calls all night, Mack made some shady pass calls in the red zone that almost cost them the game. Especialy the one on 3rd and 5 from the 8 yard line. WTF? But on a play that was supposed to be a pass on 4th and season, VY did what VY does, he waited, he looked, he pranced, he darted and he scored. Unfreakingbelievable. But we have almost come to expect it from Greatness. And then he asked what coach needed and went ahead and put up another two points to make sure there was no SC field goal victory. No problem. (We had chanted the for the last 30 seconds, "leave them no time." we knew what SC was capable of, and they almost did it. But as Leinart, scrambled and let the time tick away, we yelled again "the clock's gonna run out, the clock's gonna run out." And when it did, it still took a second to realize, Texas is the national champion)

Beer was poured over heads. Bear hugs and high-fives for everyone. Then it was time to enjoy the mayhem with the rest of Austin. We walked across the Congress Ave. bridge. And we were soon to realize this was a night like no other. Every person driving (and, seriously, what are they doing driving? no way they're sober, but we digress) honked their horns in jubilation. People standing out of sun-roofs, leaning out of windows, riding on hoods. The party was on. We walked down 6th street and bars were blaring "We Are the Champions" out of their open store fronts and on to the streets. People were making out. We saw a few tears, as well. Spontaneous choruses of "The Eyes of Texas" were bursting forth. People believed in god and believed his name to be Vince Young. VY was such a legend already that we had posited before walking downtown that if one were to throw on a Vince jersey and walk downtown he could get mad play just from women jubilating in the peripheral greatness of said fan and his fantaticism. To that end, we saw one guy walk by Lovejoy's with a Vince jersey, a cape and black eye tape with 512 enscribed on it. That guy had it right. And that guy got laid. We are not real sure what happened to us. We got drunk wtih strangers. Took shots of who-knows-what and eventually got a ride home from the most beautiful girl in Austin (you know who you are). All night we fielded cell calls from out of town, "What's the city like?" and text messages from in town "Where the hell are you? I can't believe it" etc. It was a night to remember. A night that reminds you of why we love sports. A communal celebration brought to this town by one man. The man for whom people were campainging for Governor or Saint: Vincent Young.

Thank you, Vince. And thank you Mack and Greg Davis for finally having faith a year or so ago to let this kid do what he does. And there are no words to describe Vince's reaction at the end of the game on the presentation rostrum. He said we will back next year wherever we gotta go. And after being reimnded of his regret of losing the Heisman, he was asked what he thought now, he pointed to the crystal BCS Trophy and said, "Aint' that beautiful? And we're bringing it home to AUSTIN, TEXAS.!"

Play on, Player!

We could talk about this performance for ever. Suffice it to say that it was the greatest individual performance in the history of college football and one of the top 10 moments in the history of sports (for us). For the record, since we could talk about him all day, Vince's line for the night is as follows:

30/40 for 267 yards in the air and 19 carries for 200 YARDS and 3 TD's! Are you freaking kidding us?! No turnovers, no sweat, no worries.

And to keep all this hooplah in perspective, the all-of-a-sudden-genius and mellower-thanks-to-some-serious-time-on-the-couch Mack Brown said of the players “I told them tonight as I told them Monday, I don't want this to be the biggest thing that ever happens in their lives. It may be the best sporting event in your life, and for some of them it will be for sure. But I want this to help them carry confidence later in life.”

That's perspesctive. That's love, and that's the power of team sports. For everyone involved.

Excuse us for any typo's but our brains hurt this morning and we refuse to spell check. Besides, WWVYD?

In the words of the late great Jack Buck, upon seeing Kirk Gibson's walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series:
"I don't believe what I just saw!"