Mack Brown and Vince Young reunited in Waco to celebrate Texas’ 2005 national title, reflecting on the season that ended with a legendary Rose Bowl win.
WACO, Texas — Former Texas coach Mack Brown and quarterback Vince Young reunited in Waco on Monday, Aug. 18 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Longhorns’ 2005 national championship at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
Brown reflected on the buildup to that historic season, noting that Young set the tone as soon as the 2004 campaign ended.
“First time Rose Bowl, first time Texas beats Michigan,” Brown explained. “He’s [Vince Young] in the middle of the field. There’s millions of people watching him and he says ‘We’ll be back,’ and I’m thinking, ‘What’s he talking about?’ I asked him, I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Coach, I want it right now.’ So we started winning the national championship on the stage at the Rose Bowl after the Michigan game because of him.”
That confidence carried into the 2005 season, when Brown and Young were instrumental in leading the Longhorns to a 13-0 record that culminated in a 41-38 victory over USC in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4, 2006. Many still regard the game as the greatest in college football history. Luncheon attendees at the Hall of Fame event heard firsthand reflections on that season from the head coach and his record-setting quarterback.
Young recalls the speech he gave to his team ahead of that season.
“‘If you guys wanna go to the national championship, y’all wanna beat Ohio State, meet me on the football field at 7 p.m.’ and the whole team showed up,” said Young. “That just showed us how committed that each and [every] last one of us were to finishing that season.”
Young, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, compiled a 30-2 record in three seasons at Texas. He became the first Division I player to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 in the same year. Young won the 2005 Davey O’Brien Award as the nation’s top quarterback but finished second to USC’s Reggie Bush in the Heisman Trophy voting — a decision he seemed to answer with his performance against the Trojans.
Brown, a 2011 inductee into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, coached the Longhorns for 16 seasons, compiling a 158-48 record. His teams won 10 games in nine consecutive years, reached 18 straight bowl games and made him the first coach to win 100 games at two different programs, Texas and North Carolina. The 2005 title was Texas’ fourth in school history, but its first since 1970.