I haven't written much about College Football this year (or this past year) even though I watched more games than usual. I had to planned to write more, but like with so many things, I just let it slide. But now that the season is over I just want to jot down a few notes.

First let me say that I’m a huge UCLA fan. I didn't go there, but my mom is an alumnus. the campus was also less than a mile away from where I spent the first 18 years of my life. I wasted a lot of time biking around, paying videos games in the Cooperage and basically doing things that I probably shouldn't have been doing. All that and the fact that I went to a pacifist university with no football program has kept me a livelong UCLA fan.

That said, I could not get enough of watching USC this year. I know, I know. I should hate everything cardinal and gold. My favorite team is UCLA and whoever is playing SC and all that. But I just could not help. One look at Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart and company against Arkansas in the early part of the season and I was hooked. I would make sure I was home or at some place where I could watch every game that was on, and I caught most of them with the exception of the some the late season games when I was in Costa Rica.

I've never seen an offense like that. I don't know that anyone has. It was mesmerizing. I don't want to say too much about it, because it's late and I want to get to bed and I need to finish this post before I crash (I'm running on my 2 Thai iced tea lunch right now).

Anyway, I was really looking forward to the National Championship Game. It was going to be great. Two unbeaten 12-0 teams. Two storied universities. Loads of incredible players including the last two Heisman Trophy winners. 34 game winning streak versus 20 game winning streak. The Rose Bowl. It was going to be great. How could it not be. But I couldn't have imagined that the game would live up to and even far surpass the hype.

Though I'm not happy about the result for many reasons (Texas beating California at anything is never good. A red state getting over on a blue state is never good. The PAC-10 losing to the BIG-12 or the old SWC blows too), I was thrilled with the game. It was a battle for the ages, and instant classic, a back and forth struggle, neither team able to get too far out ahead, a game filled with amazing performances, brilliant runs, staggering interceptions.

Personally I wouldn't have gone for it on 4th down. I was yelling at the screen for SC to punt and make Vince Young and Texas go at least 80 yards. But Pete Carroll has been going for it on 4th down all season long, in tougher situations than that, with more yards to go than that, and LenDale White had been an unstoppable freight train all game long. The Texas D just stuffed him and then Young ran all the way down the field and punched it in. They deserved to win. Ironically it was just like last year when Young led Texas from behind in the Rose Bowl, that time against Michigan and not for the title, but clearly it was a dress rehearsal that prepared them perfectly for this year's tilt.

Was it the greatest game ever? I don't know. I haven't seen all the games. Some people will probably argue that it was. It not, it's definitely up there among the best. It was the most fun to watch with the best ending of any game that I have seen since the Doug Flutie Boston College - Miami game, way back when.

USC had a great run. 34 wins in a row and two titles. Pretty unbelievable. They are going to lose some top talent and their defense wasn't all that spectacular so they might slip a little, but they have come back from oblivion to the top of the game. You have to respect that.

Meanwhile crosstown in my hood, UCLA quietly put together a decent 11-2 season of their own (with loses only to hated USC and Arizona, whom they could not stop on the ground, well, let's face it, they couldn't stop Youngstown State on the ground). They won a bowl game for the first time in years, the Sun Bowl against a tough and talented Northwestern team. It's good to have them back in the upper echelon of the NCAA again.