It's not that surprising that Texas took home the national championship this season. The Longhorns were a great team. What is amazing is that 35 years went by since Texas last climbed to the top of the college football mountain. At last, the biggest school in a state that s more crazy about football than any other will be ranked first in the final polls after such a long hiatus. It's been long overdue.

 Too hot to handle.

The Longhorns proved they were the better team, but a major error by the referees helped them secure the title. On the drive following USC's last score, a Texas receiver caught a pass and went out-of-bounds with approximately 6:20 left in the game. The clock continued to run, and 30 seconds elapsed. At the time, it appeared that the Longhorns would suffer as they tried to make a comeback. But, when Young strolled into the end zone to give the Texas a 41-38 lead with 19 seconds left in regulation, USC ended up paying the price for the clock error.

With no timeouts, Trojans' quarterback Matt Leinart had to get his team in position for a field goal with minimal time left. It did not happen and the Trojans were denied their third consecutive national title. Still, Texas deserved to win the game, despite being the beneficiary of some bad calls by the officials and some questionable decisions by both the USC coaches and players. The Longhorns had Young, after all.  And that is all they really needed. The Trojans had never seen a quarterback like the one they saw last night. They never defended a passer that was so mobile, and it showed.

USC's linebackers were a step slow and could not contain Young, who accumulated 467 yards of total offense. In the Pac-10, USC's defense regularly lines up against pocket passers who work within more traditional offenses. Texas coach Mack Brown and his offensive coordinator Greg Davis have structured their attack in such a way that it allows Young to improvise and turn what appear to be passing plays into big runs. The Trojans were caught off guard.     

But as much as Texas grabbed the game from USC's grasp, the Trojans let a victory slip through their fingers. Perhaps hubris caused the fall of their dynasty. Running back Reggie Bush may have started to believe all the hype about his near superhuman ability until he made that ill-fated lateral attempt in the first half. Pete Carroll may have been too confident in his offense's capabilities when he foregoed a field goal attempt to go for it on fourth down in the first quarter. Leinart was then stuffed on a quarterback sneak.

Flash forward three quarters and Carroll tried to kill Texas' chance for a comeback by going for it again on fourth down. This time he elected to do so inside Texas' 45-yard line, but LenDale White was stopped short of the first down with 2:04 left in the game and no Reggie Bush on the field to make Texas think about how it should align its defense.

Two scoring opportunities and a big chunk of field position were the cumulative losses of these aggressive and perhaps unwise decisions. The same risky calls that gave Carroll a victory over Notre Dame in South Bend earlier this season backfired against Texas in Pasadena on Wednesday night.

That is one of the reasons why Texas was standing on the podium and absorbing the confetti that fell from above when the game was over. In the end, they got the breaks and made USC pay for their mistakes. After 35 years, the Longhorns were glad to win a national championship any way they could. And when it was all said and done the Trojans were happy to help Texas' cause.

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.

 The Real Stars

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.

Mike Nolan should just admit it. The San Francisco 49ers made a mistake when they took Alex Smith with the first overall pick of the 2005 Draft. The quarterback, who played college ball at Utah, has had a disastrous rookie campaign that reached its nadir last week in San Francisco's 41-3 loss to Seattle.

Smith had three fumbles in that game and has nine this year, numbers that highlight the problems that have plagued the quarterback all season. His struggles with holding onto the football have also led to questions about the size of his hands, which have also been involved in throwing nine interceptions this year versus no touchdowns. In a draft that was loaded with good running backs but also featured a noticeable dearth in quarterback talent, San Francisco picked a signal caller. Sure, the 49ers had a need. But there was talk that had San Francisco not selected Smith he would have been waiting quite a while to be picked, much like fellow quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was the 24th player taken.

 Courtesy AP

If the 49ers were smart, they would have traded down or picked somebody else like wide receiver Braylon Edwards. Edwards would have been a nice complement to current USC quarterback Matt Leinart, who could be in position to be selected by the 49ers if they decide that Smith is a bust.

And Smith seems to be on his way to becoming one of those players who does not live up to expectations. Perhaps that has a lot to do with the fact that he ran a system offense in college, much like Andre Ware and the gaggle of Florida quarterbacks who played under Steve Spurrier. Ware, who coordinated Houston's Run-and-Shoot attack with precision, completed only 83 passes during an abbreviated NFL career after being picked by the Lions with the seventh overall pick in the 1990 draft. Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews lit up defenses while playing with the Gators, but lost their bite when they started passing in the pros.

Smith, the centerpiece for Urban Meyer's Spread-Option offense while at Utah, also has had shell-shock since making the transition to the NFL. While some may claim that it is too early to give up on Smith, it seems pretty evident that he will not be a star in this league. He looks confused in the pocket and has failed to adjust to the speed of the game in a league where a split-second decision can make or break a season. Just ask Donovan McNabb.

If San Francisco is presented with the opportunity, the 49ers would be prudent to draft Matt Leinart and make amends for a poor decision. Leinart runs a Pro-Style offense at USC and manages the game well, making limited mistakes and showing moxie at crucial junctures of big games. His 34-1 record is proof of that. Smith, meanwhile, burst on the scene during one remarkable season at Utah. Since then, he has shown that he was not as good as he was cracked up to be when the 49ers selected him with the first pick. San Francisco can only blame itself. But there still is time to fix a mistake and the 49ers will have the opportunity to do so in April.