Seattle – Any questions? Will Washington play a better, more talented or more explosive team than it faced Saturday? Does college football have a team that can beat the Trojans, whose winning streak is now 29 and counting? Whose national championship string is now two and counting as well?
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Nope, nope and nope.
Enjoy the Trojans now, you football fanatics not blinded by purple and gold devotion, because you won’t see anyone better for decades. Maybe ever.
Even Washington coach Tyrone Willingham, never one so moved as to slap his thighs and yell “whee” over anything, gave the Trojans the highest praise he could possibly give following a 51-24 mugging at the hands of the Trojans.
“This group, if it is to be the case, is the best of its time,” Willingham said. “Other teams are the best of their time. That is with genuine respect of both the present and the past … winning that many games in a row is special. They put themselves in that special category.”
He can say that again, whatever he said. His point, such as it was, is well taken.
We can go one better.
From this angle, having closely watched and loved the game for 40 years, a more balanced, a more dangerous football team never teed it up. And that includes the 1991 purple and gold national co-champion.
Long regarded in these parts as the icon of the way the game is played, the ‘91 Huskies were inarguably powerful in all phases of the game. It was a ferocious bunch that punished teams on both sides of the ball and pasted a good Michigan team 34-14 in the Rose Bowl.
But as great as that team was, the 2005 Trojans are better. And that’s no slight on the ‘91 Huskies.
They have better athletes. They’re faster. They have a better quarterback. Better running backs. Better receivers. The defenses are close. Overall, the nod goes to the Trojans.
When this group is done, it will have three national titles and two Heisman winners, if all is right and just in the world. They have more stars than Hollywood.
“I looked up at the score, and we’re playing pretty good,” UW defensive coordinator Kent Baer said. “We’re doing a lot of good things, and the score was 27-7. I just went, ‘Wow.’”
Two plays – two unbelievable, uncoachable plays the Trojans pulled off Saturday – illustrate what separates USC from everyone else.
On the Punt Return of the Year, Reggie Bush was stone trapped.
Ty Eriks had him, but missed. No biggie, or so it seemed, because four other Huskies surrounded Bush and would surely bring him crashing down.
Fine, except Bush decided to spin away, burst to his right and left Huskies littered all over the field on an 84-yard touchdown run.
Bush, who ran up 185 all-purpose yards Saturday, is the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy on a team that already has one Heisman winner, in Leinart. There are those, possibly Bush himself, who believe he should have won it last season.
USC has the answer. Get Bush this one.
This season, the Trojans are highlighting him and he’s taking advantage.
When you’re the Trojans, you can afford to spread the wealth and not lose a step.
“I’ve never seen a better one than him,” said Baer, who admitted to gasping on several occasions when Bush carried the ball. “He showed it on that punt. That’s the kind of football player he is. He’s always been a great football player. I think he’s playing harder now than I’ve ever seen him play. I think he’s on a mission. I think he’d like to prove something.”
On the Catch of the Year, USC sophomore wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett launched his 6-foot-5 frame in the corner of the end zone with Washington corner Roy Lewis all over him. Neither Lewis nor any corner in the country could have covered Jarrett any closer. Jarrett had no business scoring on the play, yet, as he elevated, his right hand reached and grabbed the ball out of the air. One-handed, for crying out loud.
Then somehow, his right foot landed inbounds. Six more points and the last of Jarrett’s three TD catches.
“Oh, no way,” said Lewis, when asked if he had any reason to think Jarrett could have come down inbounds on the play. “Honestly, I thought I pushed him out of bounds. I thought it was great coverage. I blanketed him on that play. It was just a perfectly thrown ball and he came down with it.”
Who else makes these kinds of plays? Who else is capable? Who else has the athletic tools?
And in the case of Jarrett’s preposterous catch, who else besides Leinart can get him the ball in the one possible place he could catch it?
The Trojans had other marvelous moments. Darnell Bing took his first career kickoff return 68 yards to the Huskies’ 24. One play later, Leinart found Jarrett for his fourth TD pass of the day.
Leinart, so smooth and so efficient, completed all but three of his 17 first-half passes and finished the day 20 of 26 for 201 yards. He played just three quarters.
In one torrid first-half stretch, USC scored its first five touchdowns while running just nine offensive plays.
The Trojans made it look easy, even though they weren’t at their best Saturday. They’d played five of their seven games on the road, including last week’s thrilling and exhausting 34-31 victory at Notre Dame.
Who can beat them?
Who in history could beat them?
It’s a short list.
If, that is, one such list even exists.
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