It’s already being called the best college football game ever.
And for all of us that saw the entire game, who would argue. In
fact some have actually gone as far as calling it the greatest
football game ever played, at any level, period.
It’s already being called the best college football game ever. And for all of us that saw the entire game, who would argue. In fact some have actually gone as far as calling it the greatest football game ever played, at any level, period.
I’m not sure I’d go that far but it was certainly one for the ages. An Instant Classic.
It had it all.
The three 2005 Heisman Trophy award finalists, the only two undefeated teams in D-1 college football this year and a nail-biting come-from-behind 41-38 victory by the Texas Longhorns over the USC Trojans.
And yet as thrilling as the game was, as equally impressive the on-field talent that matched proved to be and as phenomenal as what many are calling the “single greatest performance by an individual in a college football game” was, the thing that most impressed me was the remarkable sportsmanship that was displayed by both squads afterwards, especially by the game’s three marquee players, namely USC’s Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart and Texas quarterback Vince Young.
In one of the classiest moves ever, Bush and Leinart, it was reported later, actually went into the Texas locker room to congratulate the Longhorn team.
Now that’s what you call great sportsmanship.
As for Young, in all his conversations that followed he was as respectful and gentlemanly as you could ever hope from a young man who had just pulled off the most Herculean on-field effort that most of us have ever witnessed on the gridiron.
As I watched General Young drive his team to a national-championship winning touchdown it was amazingly reminiscent of another young man’s effort this year, namely, Karson Klauer’s game-winning drive that gave San Benito the CCS Large School Division championship.
Klauer & Company in their postgame celebration carried themselves with the same sportsmanship as the Longhorn and Trojans players. And I’d be remiss if I left out the Dustin Muhn’s (Live Oak) and Bobby Best’s (Gilroy) of this area that not only played their hearts out, they were class acts, both in victory and in defeat.
Within a couple of months Leinart, Bush and Young (If he chooses to leave early) will all be multi-millionaires. But even minus the money, they’re already golden because of who they are as young men.
This should be a lesson to all youth out there that are currently playing sports today. As impressive as your on-field performance is, it’s who you are, how you conduct yourself as a person that makes you the real hometown hero.
John Coscia
