The first domino fell long before the fourth-and-two and Vince Young’s fateful run.
Take back the last 11 years, run back the game of the century from the beginning and the thing that might have done USC in, the thing that changed it all, was … a rolled ankle?
USC’s former players are thinking about that game again, the 2006 Rose Bowl against Texas, as the teams prepare to play on Saturday for the first time since that night. Some of them never stopped thinking about it.
The rest of the world remembers that the game was won on that fourth-and-two failure and the brilliance of Young.