2006 Rose Bowl

The 2006 Rose Bowl Game, played on January 4, 2006, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, was an American college football bowl game that served as the BCS National Championship Game for the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season. It featured the only two unbeaten teams of the season: the defending Rose Bowl champion and reigning Big 12 Conference champion Texas Longhorns played Pacific-10 Conference titleholders and two-time defending AP national champions, the USC Trojans. Texas would defeat USC (whose loss was later officially vacated) 41–38 to capture its fourth football championship in program history and first consensus national title since 1969. The game was a back-and-forth contest; Texas's victory was not secured until the game's final nineteen seconds. Vince Young, the Texas quarterback, and Michael Huff, a Texas safety, were named the offensive and defensive Rose Bowl Players of the Game. ESPN named Young's fourth-down, game-winning touchdown run the fifth-highest rated play in college football history. The game is the highest-rated BCS game in television history with 21.7% of households watching it, and is often considered the greatest Rose Bowl game of all time, as well as the greatest college football game ever played.

Texas's Rose Bowl win was the 800th victory in school history and the Longhorns ended the season ranked third in Division I history in both wins and winning percentage (.7143). It was only the third time that the two top-ranked teams had faced each other in Rose Bowl history, with the 1963 Rose Bowl and 1969 Rose Bowl games being the others; these games also featured USC.

This was the final game ever called by longtime broadcaster Keith Jackson (as well as the final Rose Bowl to telecast under ABC Sports branding); the 2007 Rose Bowl would be an ESPN on ABC presentation. It was also the final time until the BCS National Championship Game for the 2009 Season that it was broadcast as an ESPN on ABC presentation. In addition, this was the last National Championship Game in the BCS era to be a nominal BCS bowl game (the National Championship and the four BCS bowls became separate events beginning with the 2006 season) as well as the last National Championship Game without a participant from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in consecutive years until the 2024 season.

This was the first college football game to feature two Heisman Trophy winners in the same starting lineup. USC's quarterback Matt Leinart and running back Reggie Bush won the award in 2004 and 2005.

In 2010, USC was forced to vacate every game from the 2005 season due to violations involving the eligibility of Reggie Bush. While the NCAA normally only vacates victories, USC claims its Rose Bowl loss was later vacated from official NCAA records, along with its 12 wins from before the game, leaving an official 2005 regular season record of 0–0.

USC entered the game on a 34-game winning streak. It was the longest active streak in Division I-A. (Many of those wins have since been vacated following NCAA sanctions surrounding allegedly illegal benefits given to USC's Reggie Bush.) Texas brought the second-longest active streak, having won nineteen straight games and entered as the defending Rose Bowl champion, after defeating Michigan in the 2005 Rose Bowl. The teams' combined 53-game win streak was an NCAA record for teams playing each other. The game was also the first to pit against each other the teams ranked first and second in every iteration of the BCS standings. This was Texas's second trip to the Rose Bowl in two years (and second trip in the history of UT football).

A few weeks before the game, USC's Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy ahead of second-place finisher Vince Young. Bush had the second-highest number of first place votes in Heisman history (behind O. J. Simpson) and the highest percentage of first-place votes, while Young had a record number of second-place votes. Bush's 933-point margin of victory was the 17th highest in Heisman voting history. The other finalist was USC's Matt Leinart, who had won the Heisman trophy in 2004. This meant that the Rose Bowl would mark the first time that two Heisman-trophy winners had ever played in the same backfield.

The 2006 Rose Bowl was, in the eyes of many, the most-anticipated matchup in college football history. Both teams were considered good enough to win the National Championship had they existed in different years instead of having to play each other. USC had been ranked No. 1 since the preseason and Texas had held the No. 2 spot that entire time. Before the game, some commentators postulated that the 2005 USC team was one of the greatest college football teams of all time. ESPN analysts were virtually unanimous in declaring the 2005 USC Trojans as having the best offense in college football history (though it did not lead the nation in points scored; Texas did). Mark May and Kirk Herbstreit declared that the 2005 USC Trojans were the second-best college football team of the past 50 years (May placed them behind only the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers; Herbstreit behind only the 2001 Miami Hurricanes). This led Texas fans to mockingly chant "Best...Team...Ever" during the post-game celebration. Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated later observed, "ESPN spent the better part of Christmas season comparing that Trojans squad to some of the most acclaimed teams of all time only to find out that they weren’t even the best team that season." Lee Corso was one of the few ESPN analysts to predict a Texas win.