page_title: 2005 Texas Longhorns football team
section_title: Rose Bowl
hierarchical_section_title: 2005 Texas Longhorns football team / Game summaries / Rose Bowl
caption_attribution_description: A football fan holds up a home-made flag cheering the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team on to victory in the Big 12 Conference championship game, earning them a spot to play for the National Championship. Photo by Johntex 2005.
context_page_description: The 2005 Texas Longhorns football team represented the University of Texas at Austin during the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season, winning the Big 12 Conference championship and the national championship. The team was coached by Mack Brown, led on offense by quarterback Vince Young, and played its home games at Darrell K. Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium.
  The team's penultimate victory of the season, the Big 12 Championship Game, featured the biggest margin of victory in the history of that contest. They finished the season by winning the 2006 Rose Bowl against the USC Trojans for the national championship. Numerous publications have cited this victory as standing among the greatest performances in college football history, and ESPN awarded the 2006 ESPY Award for the "Best Game" in any sport to the Longhorns and the Trojans. The Longhorns finished as the only unbeaten team in NCAA Division I-A football that year, with thirteen wins and zero losses.
  Texas earned its second Big 12 Conference football championship to make 27 conference championships total, including 25 in the Southwest Conference.
context_section_description: For the 2005 season, the Rose Bowl also served as the BCS National Championship Game as a result of the Bowl Championship Series agreement. In the weeks leading up to the 2006 Rose Bowl, the game was described by numerous publications as one of the most-anticipated match-ups in college football history and even as the greatest college football game of all time. This was Texas' second trip to the Rose Bowl in school history, alongside their trip the previous season.
  Less than three weeks before the game, USC Trojan Reggie Bush won the Heisman trophy—since vacated—ahead of second place finisher Vince Young. Bush had the second highest number of first place votes in Heisman history (behind O.J. Simpson) and the highest percentage of first place votes, while Young had a record number of second place votes. Bush's 933-point margin of victory was the 17th highest in the history of the Heisman voting. The third finalist was USC's Matt Leinart, who won the Heisman trophy in 2004. This Rose Bowl would mark the first time two Heisman trophy winners would ever play in the same backfield.
  The game's outcome was in doubt until the final minute of play. With 19 seconds left on the game clock, Vince Young ran for a touchdown and regained the lead for the Longhorns. He followed up by running the ball into the end zone for a two-point conversion. Leinart had time to attempt one pass but his pass fell out of bounds as time expired; UT beat USC by the score of 41–38.
  Young completed 30 of 40 passes for 267 yards and carried the ball 19 times for 200 yards and 3 rushing touchdowns. His 467 total yards set a new Rose Bowl and BCS Championship Game record. He won the Rose Bowl "Most Valuable Player" (MVP) award for the second consecutive year, joining Ron Dayne, Bob Schloredt, and Charles White as the only two-time winners but the only player from outside the Big Ten or Pac-10. David Thomas' ten receptions set a UT record for most receptions in a game by a tight end.
  Prior to the game, commentators had postulated that the 2005 USC team was one of or even the "greatest team of all-time". ESPN analysts were virtually unanimous in their declaration of the 2005 USC Trojans as the best offense in the history of college football, despite the fact that they were in second place behind Texas in terms of points scored during the season. ESPN analysts Mark May and Kirk Herbstreit declared, before the 2005 Rose Bowl had even been played, that the 2005 USC Trojans were the second best college football team of the past 50 years. May placed them behind only the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers; Herbstreit behind only the 2001 Miami Hurricanes. This led to Texas fans at the Rose Bowl mockingly chanting "Best ... Team ... Ever" during the post-game celebration. Stewart Mandell of Sports Illustrated observed, "ESPN spent the better part of Christmas season comparing that Trojans squad to some of the most acclaimed teams of all time only to find out that they weren't even the best team that season."
  Texas' Rose Bowl win was the 800th victory in school history and it earned the Longhorns their fourth consensus national championship in football. Since the game, the media, coaches, and other commentators have heaped praise upon the Texas team, Young, and the Rose Bowl performance. Both the Rose Bowl win as well as the Longhorns' overall season have both been cited as standing among the greatest performances in college football history by observers such as College Football News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Scout.com, Austin American-Statesman, and Sports Illustrated. ESPN awarded the two teams the 2006 ESPY Award for the "Best Game" in any sport.
  Texas' win over USC was their ninth consecutive victory when facing a ranked opponent. Texas broke USC's winning streak (then the longest in the nation) at 34 and claimed the longest running winning streak for themselves at 20 wins in a row. Texas' 20-game winning streak was the second-longest winning streak in school history; Texas had 30 wins in a row from 1968 to 1970. Texas extended the winning streak to 21 before a Se
caption: Rose Bowl Bound – a fan at the Big 12 Championship Game celebrates UT's upcoming appearance in the Rose Bowl with a home-made flag.
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