For the last few weeks Wednesday's Rose Bowl matchup between USC and Texas has been hyped as one of the most intriguing games of the last 25 years. That has a lot to do with the players involved. Two Heisman Trophy winners and one finalist for the coveted award will be on the field Wednesday, and much has been said about the impact Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and Vince Young have each made on their teams. But lost amidst all the stars in this battle for the national championship are the two opposing head coaches -- Pete Carroll and Mack Brown, who have both rebuilt national powers that were struggling mightily before they took over.

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When Brown took over in Austin after the 1997 season, the Longhorns were a long way from contending for a national championship. Texas finished with a 4-7 record that year and hadn't been ranked in the Top 10 at the end of the season since 1990, when David McWilliams was coach and the Longhorns were still in the now-defunct Southwest Conference. USC, meanwhile, wasn't doing much better under the direction of John Robinson and Paul Hackett in the late-1990s. In fact, the Trojans were having greater struggles. During that period, USC had morphed into a mediocre program and never finished with a record better than 8-5 between 1996 and 2001.

Flash forward to 2006 and both Brown and Carroll have transformed Texas and USC into juggernauts. Both coaches have aggressively recruited in their fertile backyards and restored the winning tradition their programs once had by surrounding themselves with capable assistants, putting the ball in the hands of their most talented athletes and making the right calls in crucial situations.

In a game that features so many impact players, coaching decisions will likely prove to be the difference. What defense will Carroll choose to contain Young, who runs the nation's highest scoring offense (51 points per game)? How will Brown focus on stopping USC, which leads the country in total offense by racking up 580 yards per game? Will he focus on Bush and tailback LenDale White or try to limit the effectiveness of Leinart and wide receivers Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith? 

Two years ago, it would have been easy to give the edge to Pete Carroll. Carroll, after all, is  a gambler who is confident in his talent. He trusted Leinart to throw a perfect fade pass to Jarrett from the Trojans' 26-yard-line in USC's memorable 34-31 win over Notre Dame earlier this season. And like so many times before, he proved he could win the big game. Mack Brown, on the other hand, had trouble beating ranked teams and rivals before this year, and his conservative game-planning hurt him time and time again.

Between 2000 and 2004, Bob Stoops and Oklahoma repeatedly got the better of Brown and his Longhorns in the Red River Shootout. The Sooners had won five straight games in the rivalry and ruined so many promising seasons for Texas that many Longhorns fans wondered if they would ever see Brown beat Oklahoma again. This year, Texas finally got its revenge and rolled over the Sooners 45-12, allowing Brown to peel the #### off his back. But even by that point, the Texas coach had shown he could get his teams to show up when it counted and began using Young in a way that made Texas nearly impossible to deal with when on offense. It all started at the last Rose Bowl, when the Longhorns outlasted Michigan 38-37 behind Young's remarkable five-touchdown performance. Brown not only got his team to a BCS bowl; he won it. And he did it by opening up his playbook and taking chances, something that both Stoops and Carroll do with great efficacy. 

Coincidentally, those two coaches were in last year's national championship game at the Orange Bowl -- one that USC won 55-19 to claim its second straight national title. Now, 12 months later, Brown and Carroll, who have constructed two of the best offenses in college football history and brought back the winning traditions to their schools, will go toe-to-toe. They may be the forgotten men in this showdown, but ultimately they are the reasons why this national championship game is being played in the first place. Brown has his work cut out for him, but if he follows the lead of Carroll and takes risks during the game Texas could very well be holding the ADT National Champion Trophy by the end of the night.