My letter to Ms. Daniels with yall:

To Christine Daniels:

I just want to make an attempt to settle this whole "Vince Young was down before pitching the ball in the 06 Rose Bowl" ordeal.  First, yes, his knee was down--there's absolutely no question to that.  The only question that remains is whether or not that had much impact on the game.  That's another no-brainier--a resolute NO.

"How is that," you might ask?  Simply, it wasn't the only gaffe made by officials that night.  Let's, for argument sake, say USC could've held Texas out of the endzone on that drive. It's probable Texas still would have gotten 3 points on a FG, instead they got 6 (missed PAT).  Fast-forward to USC's last drive of the 1st half.  Drew Kelson intercepted a pass intended for Reggie Bush that the refs ruled incomplete, however, if you review that part of the game, which you Cali people always tend to overlook because it doesn't fit your agenda, you'll notice that the ground caused the ball to come free after Kelson had clear possession.  The result, a free 3 points for USC just before halftime.

Now if you take away the 3 extra points Texas got on the option play, and also the 3 on the aforementioned FG, the game would have been 13-7 Texas at the half.  The actual score--16-10, still a 6 point difference.

Now please explain to me how USC got cheated, or should I just outline how they just plain cheated throughout the Reggie Bush era?  If you're going to point out missed calls by the officiating staff, point them all out, not just the ones that fit your point of view.

Sincerely,
James Dunn
Pampa, TX

Please let me know if there was anything I left out.  I actually wouldn't mind spamming the hell out of their inbox at the Times.

every athletic organization that gets a leg-up on a club from So-Cal is lucky.  But any So-Cal team's victory is due to them being superior.

"I still think we're the better team, even though we just lost the game."

It was a bad call, his knee was down.  But I agree that it didn't necessarily affect the outcome of the game.  The way VY was playing, it's very likely that he would have scored on the next series of downs.  (It would have been 1st and goal inside the 10 yard line).  

If Texas had in fact taken more time off the clock on that drive, then USC may not have had time to kick the field goal right before halftime.  So reversing the call might have hurt USC - you never know.  It's not a guarantee that Vince still scores that TD during the next 3 plays, but they weren't able to stop him the whole game.

At any rate, suggesting that Texas won that game by getting lucky is just absurd.

What I want to know is: when USC plays UCLA which one is lucky?

Was UCLA lucky last year? Was USC lucky the previous year?  Blaming a loss on luck is stoopid.  I think it was Chuck Noll who said you make your own luck.