Nice choke job, guys

Things looked good for the Spoiled Children. They were up by 2 touchdowns with only 6 minutes+ to go in the game. Sure, they gave up the first score too easily, but it still cost the 'Horns a couple of minutes off the clock. All the Trojans had to do was kill 4 minutes of game time and history was to be made. For some unknown reason, however, the offensive coordinator (Lane Kiffin, although I would be hugely surprised if Pete Carroll, genius that he is, hadn't given the final ok) decided that their 2 100-yard rushers weren't up to that task the whole time, so Kiffin called for a pass play in their first set of downs. It fell incomplete, which at every level of football stops the clock. When you are trying to run out the clock, what is the key? That's right, not stopping the clock from continuing its inexorable march to 0:00.
Even given that blunder, the Boys of Troy got that initial first down and moved upfield. With just over 2 minutes to go, however, they found themselves at the Texas 40 or so with a 4th down and a bit more than 1 yard to go. At this juncture, most coaches would have had enough faith in their defense to prevent any team from driving 80+ yards in roughly 2 minutes and would have punted the ball deep into Texas territory. Not Kiffin and Carroll, though. They made the brilliant decision to "go for it" by running the ball up the middle. Of course, it was just a minute earlier that they had decided that their star running backs could not finish off the game successfully, but on a 4th down play in the middle of the field? Sure thing. Granted, if LenDale White had made that yard+, we would all be congratulating Carroll for his "brilliance". But even at the time, I thought it was a stupid move. Pin the Longhorns deep, make them "drive the length of the field". The chance of giving them the ball almost at midfield was too great a risk.
Carroll must have assumed that his defense wouldn't have been able to stop Vince Young and the Longhorns no matter where Texas got the ball (which may well have been true, but we'll never know)--what a boost of confidence for them when they took the field! But the 'Horns only had 1 timeout, there would have been less than 2 minutes to play--USC only had to slow them down long enough for the clock to stop them! As it was, it took Young all but 19 seconds to score from their own 40. Those extra 20, or maybe even 30 or more, yards (and, more importantly, the time it would have taken Texas to gain them) that Carroll and Kiffin simply gave the Longhorns made the difference. I feel sorry for the players who are paying the emotional price for their coaches choking the game away like that. Well, sort of. After all, this is the University of Spoiled Children--it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys, eh?
(And yes, I am fully aware that my own Ducks couldn't beat the unranked Sooners, so where do I get off, right? But I think they did a damn fine job nonetheless, seeing as how they played their last 5 games without their first string star quarterback (going 4-1, and only losing that one by 3 points. Oh well, wait till next year . . .)