JIM LITKE The 'Bush Push' clinched USC's claim to greatness

LOS ANGELES -- Grit was the final ingredient.
If Southern California beats Texas in the Rose Bowl to win an unprecedented third straight championship, the Trojans could do more than restart the debate over whether they're the game's best team ever.
They might force coach Pete Carroll to step back and admire not just what USC has accomplished -- "It has never been a focus of our program to look at the end of the rainbow," he said the other day -- but how all those far-flung pieces settled into a portrait so close to perfection.
And if that happens, none will loom larger than the character-building exercise commemorated simply as the "Bush Push."
A dynasty built on dazzling speed and finesse was tottering unsteadily at Notre Dame, seven seconds and 18 inches from the end of its run. The Trojans arrived in South Bend, Ind., for an Oct. 15 game against the Fighting Irish on the wings of a 27-game winning streak, boasting as many skill-position stars as an entire wing of the College Football Hall of Fame nearby.
Quarterback Matt Leinart, the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner, could find the seam in most defenses and commanded a trio of NFL-ready receivers capable of ripping it open. All-purpose back Reggie Bush, already a front-runner for the 2005 award, gave Southern California the luxury of stretching those same defenses. His backfield tandem, LenDale White, added the option of running through them.
Forced to make a choice
But at that moment, trailing 31-28, a team used to dodging and dancing away from opponents before scoring a TKO was being dared, finally, to stand in front of one and slug it out.
On the visitors sideline, Carroll called a quarterback sneak, eager to see how his team would react when push came to shove. But he also left Leinart an out: Spike the ball, set up a game-tying field-goal try and the Trojans would take their chances in overtime.
Before the whistle blew to resume play, Bush asked his quarterback the question everybody in the stadium wanted answered:
"You gonna go for it?"
Nine months earlier, Leinart waffled for nearly two weeks before taking one of the bigger risks in sports history. He left a guaranteed eight-figure deal from the pros on the table to play one more season at USC. But now, Leinart was ominously undecided about what to do next.
"You think I should?" he said.
"Go for it," Bush replied.
The ball was snapped.
"I think that's a moment you can only get, maybe if you're lucky, once in a lifetime, and that wouldn't have happened," Carroll noted, had Leinart taken the NFL's money and run.
"That was really, kind of, the turning point for us in a season as a team to get on a run to finish out this year. I know that was kind of a pivotal opportunity I think Matt will never forget."
Unforgettable
It was unforgettable not just because of where Leinart eventually wound up -- at the Rose Bowl to defend USC's back-to-back titles -- but because of where he'd just been.
Some 90 seconds earlier, facing fourth-and-9 from his own 26-yard line, Leinart brought the Trojans to the line, scanned the defense and checked off to a different play. Then he wedged a wobbly spiral between the Notre Dame secondary and the left sideline, where Dwayne Jarrett latched onto it and raced 61 yards to the Notre Dame 13.
A few plays later, from first-and-goal at the 2, Leinart took off up that same sideline to make up the rest of the distance himself. A perfectly timed hit by Irish linebacker Corey Mays sent the quarterback flying and the football flying even farther, backward and out of bounds. The final few seconds ticked off the clock, the Irish players rushed the field just ahead of the fast-emptying stands, and the officials struggled to maintain order.
Defining moment
By the time they succeeded, 7 seconds were back on the clock and the ball rested inside the 1. His mind made up, Leinart put his body behind left guard Taitisu Lutui and pushed. But the middle of the Notre Dame defense pushed right back, fighting to a standstill.
In the briefest of moments, as Leinart turned his back to the goal line and made a second effort to gain traction, Bush rushed in. He put both arms on his quarterback and pushed.
Touchdown.
For a few moments afterward, it was hard to tell who'd won.
Leinart made his way back to the sideline and cried. A half-hour later, drained, he sat in front of his locker and dabbed at his eyes.
In the interview room, meanwhile, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis smiled and said he hoped every one of his kids would have done what Bush did. He ran into the USC star at an awards ceremony not long ago. Nothing had changed.
"Reggie and I had a nice conversation about that down in Orlando," Weis recalled recently. "We sat down for about 10 or 15 minutes and we were talking about a bunch of things. I think when you're in football you can't look at the what-ifs."
Even now, just about everyone else who caught the conclusion of the best college game so far this century agree on a few things: The push was illegal. It was a brilliant bit of improvisation. And it proved that USC's grip on the crown was less about pedigree than toughness.
That last point was hardly wasted on Texas. The Longhorns destroyed Colorado that same October afternoon and a few players paused to watch the end of USC-Notre Dame before leaving the locker room.
"Any athlete, any competitor, would have done the same thing," Texas defender Mike Huff recalled Monday. He didn't try to hide his admiration for the "Bush Push," either.
"I know," Huff added, "I would have."
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org