THE EYES OF ALL ARE NOW UPON TEXAS ROSE BOWL WIN GIVES LONGHORNS THE TITLE BUT ALSO MAKES THEM A BIG TARGET.Byline: Walter Hammerwold Staff Writer BEVERLY HILLS Beverly Hills, city (1990 pop. 31,971), Los Angeles co., S Calif., completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles; inc. 1914. The largely residential city is home to many motion-picture and television personalities. - Texas football coach Mack Brown William Mack Brown (born August 27, 1951) is head coach of the University of Texas Longhorn football team. During the 2005 season, Coach Brown led the Longhorns to a Rose Bowl victory and a National Championship. had barely gone to bed in the early hours of Thursday morning when the phone in his Century City hotel room started to ring. ``You know your life is different when the first call you get this morning is from President Bush at 6 o'clock,'' Brown said. ``And (my wife) Sally asked me if I was awake and wanted to take it. And I said, `I think so.' '' Bush's congratulatory phone call might have been a pleasant surprise, but Brown and his players should get ready for a lot more surprises, both positive and negative, in the coming months. Texas came to Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, under the radar This article is about the magazine. For other uses, see Under the Radar (disambiguation). Under the Radar is an American magazine that bills itself as "The solution to music pollution." It features interviews with accompanying photo-shoots. , an afterthought in USC's historic title run. It left Thursday as the new national champion, expected to face a schedule and scrutiny that will make afterthoughts of things as basic as sleep. Texas upset USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. in the 92nd Rose Bowl on Wednesday to win its fourth national title and first since 1970. The Longhorns overcame a 12-point deficit in the final six minutes with a pair of touchdown runs by quarterback Vince Young Vincent Paul Young, Jr. (born May 18, 1983[1] in Houston, Texas), commonly Vince Young, or "VY", is an American football player. He is a dual-threat quarterback, and the current starting quarterback for the National Football League Tennessee Titans. that gave them a 41-38 victory and put to bed the Trojans' two-year run atop the national polls. Young, who a year ago ran roughshod over Michigan in the Longhorns' first Rose Bowl appearance, had 467 total yards of offense in what might have been the greatest individual performance in the history of the storied Pasadena game. ``This is a team that's really tough,'' Brown said. ``Most teams would've folded last night. Most teams would've folded in the fourth quarter at Ohio State. And this is really a resilient, confident, tough football team.'' Having confidence and toughness on the football field is one thing. Having those attributes when confronted by the rigors of the limelight is something else. The Trojans ran off 34 straight victories before being stopped by the Longhorns. With each win, the attention became greater and distractions grew. Texas is now on a 20-game winning streak Noun 1. winning streak - a streak of wins streak, run - an unbroken series of events; "had a streak of bad luck"; "Nicklaus had a run of birdies" , the longest in the nation, and can expect to be field constant questions about a repeat from now to whenever it finally loses. If the Longhorns can finish the 2006 regular season unbeaten, they would enter the Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl, now sponsored by Tostitos tortilla chips (a Frito-Lay product), is a United States college football game played annually since 1971. Originally, the game was hosted in Tempe, Arizona at Sun Devil Stadium where it remained until 2006. in Jan. 2007 with 33 straight wins, one shy of the Trojans' now-defunct streak. If they let the hype and distractions get the better of them, however, they could wind up on the losing end of a game against a hungrier, more determined team. ``What we're going to do is enjoy this run right now,'' Brown said. ``We'll be in spring practice Feb. 24 and get ready to start over, because next year's team hasn't won a game.'' The primary focus on Thursday was on the national title and the Longhorns' rally from 12 points down. Texas' team captains, operating on three hours' sleep, spent the morning answering questions, cracking jokes and posing for photos at the BCS (1) (The British Computer Society, Swindon, Wiltshire, England, www.bcs.org) The chartered body for information technology professionals in the U.K., founded in 1957. trophy presentation in Beverly Hills. ``It's been a long time since the University of Texas has done the thing that we did,'' Young said. ``I'm just so proud of the hard work that the whole football team and the coaches (put in).'' But the focus was also on the future, and whether the Longhorns can weather the distractions sure to come with being No. 1. Young will be the target of media attention from now until Jan. 15, when he must decide whether he wants jump to the NFL NFL abbr. National Football League NFL (US) n abbr (= National Football League) → Fußball-Nationalliga a year early or return for his senior year. Either way, the media attention will only intensify from there. Young and Co. are likely to field more requests from talk shows as the days wear on. ``President Bush said this morning he nodded off in the third quarter once,'' Brown quipped. ``I said, 'Yeah, we did, too.' '' Thanks to their new spot atop the college football world, nodding off might be something the Longhorns no longer have the time to do. Walter Hammerwold, (626) 962-8811, ext. 2239 walter.hammerwold(at)sgvn.com CAPTION(S): photo, box Photo: (color) Texas QB Vince Young kisses the national championship trophy after leading the Longhorns past USC in the Rose Bowl. Michael Owen
Box: REPORT CARD: NO. 2 TEXAS 41, NO. 1 USC 38 |
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