One Question Haunting Texas : How Do You Stop Reggie Bush?

By David Lassen, dlassen@VenturaCountyStar.com

So you're on the defensive unit of the University of Texas Longhorns football team, the nation's No. 6 defense, part of a 19-game winning streak and playing in the Bowl Championship Series title game on Wednesday.

For all of that, it seems your entire role in life has been reduced to one question: How do you stop Reggie Bush?

"Yeah," says linebacker Rashad Bobino. "That's the question we're pretty much sick of."

No doubt this is mostly because of the relentless repetition. But the concept itself could be enough to make a defender queasy.

NCAA rules, after all, limit the use of tranquilizer darts or the Malaysian man trip. For legal reasons, kidnapping or sabotage of the team bus are out. Short of those measures, it sometimes seems there's little way to stop Bush from adding to a collection of what seems to be thousands of video highlights. (For the record, a Google search for the phrase "Reggie Bush video highlights" returns more than 305,000 hits.)

Now, Bush is more than willing to admit he is not unstoppable. But the practical application of that knowledge is rather limited.

"I'm not Superman," he says. "Obviously, you put three or four guys on me, you can stop anybody. But at the same time, that's going to open up plays for other guys like Dwayne (Jarrett), Dominique Byrd, Steve (Smith), LenDale (White). I welcome teams with open arms to put that many defenders on me."

As Exhibit A in the stoppability of Bush, and the cost of the effort, flash back a year to the Orange Bowl, the 2005 edition of the BCS championship game. Oklahoma made Bush a huge focus of their defense, and the running back from Spring Valley had good, but hardly superhuman numbers: 75 yards rushing, 31 yards receiving, 43 yards in kick returns.

Oh, and USC won 55-19.

"I don't think they had just one spy," said Bush, employing the trendy football term for a defender assigned to follow one specific player all times. "They had about three or four spies. We were able to hurt them through the air and the receivers did a great job and had a great game, and (quarterback Matt) Leinart just went crazy that game."

So the spying approach would be absolutely be welcomed by the Trojans -- "If you just try and kill one player, someone else is going to make the play," says receiver Jarrett -- which is why Texas is unlikely to employ it.

"What I've found a lot of times," says Gene Chizik, who shares defensive coordinator duties for the Longhorns, "is if the guy is that good that you're spying on him, he's probably better than your spy guy. You know, you've got to have 11 guys spying this guy. I mean, he's that good."

With all that in mind, then, we're back to the question most likely to induce nausea for a player wearing burnt orange: How do you stop Reggie Bush?

There's just one logical answer. You don't.

"He's a talented guy," says Bobino. "He's a human joystick, so you just have to swarm to the ball and play pretty good defense. ... We want to look at the whole (offensive) side, because they have Jarrett, LenDale, Bush and the other Heisman winner, Leinart. That's why you have to stop them as a whole defense. You can't just focus on Bush."

Michael Huff, the Longhorns' standout safety, considers a certain amount of big-time stuff from Bush is inevitable.

"We know he's going to make his plays," says Huff. "It's just our job to contain him and get the ball back to our offense. ... The things he does out there are just amazing. He's a great college football player, and I look forward to the challenge of playing him."

One school of thought, championed by ESPN analyst Lee Corso among others, is that when Bush is in the game, it's best to play a nickel defense -- one with an extra defensive back -- to better counter Bush's speed. But Texas linebacker Robert Killebrew isn't so sure, for the same reason the Longhorns have misgivings about most other Bush-oriented plans: there are all those other guys out there in cardinal and gold.

"It would make sense to play more nickel," he says, "But at the same time, you cannot forget about LenDale White. You can't forget about how he has a 1,000 yards rushing. You can't forget about how Reggie does run inside. So we're going to just play defense."

As a concept, that's pretty simple. In execution, it's a lot tougher -- because, no matter how much a defense may not want to focus on Bush, whenever he's on the field, it has to be aware of him.

"Sometimes we know, when Reggie's in a game, (a defense) won't play any man coverage," says Lane Kiffin, USC Trojans offensive co-coordinator, " because they won't put a man on Reggie. So every time you put Reggie in -- not as a receiver; every time he's in your huddle -- you know you're limiting the calls the defensive coordinator can make. So he helps us in so many ways you (media) guys cannot imagine."

So how do you stop Reggie Bush?

You don't, and he kills you. Or you do, and someone else kills you.

If the Longhorns have a third option, they'll be the first to come up with it in 35 games. And they're certainly not going to explain it beforehand.

-- Contact Star columnist David Lassen at dlassen@VenturaCountyStar.com.

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