Tampa Bay Buccaneers must emulate Vince Young’s Texas Longhorns

To beat the Kansas City Chiefs, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should look at how Texas upset heavily favored USC to win the 2006 Rose Bowl.

At first glance, if you asked a team like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to emulate a college program, you would be asked to leave the room. A team playing in the Super Bowl should not just forgo their ways if it helped them get to such a point.

But there are ways to look at it. In fact, the Buccaneers should take a closer look at a team like themselves, who was an underdog heading into the championship of their sport; a team like the Texas Longhorns entering the 2006 Rose Bowl.

As many will recall, the team led by Vince Young pulled off an amazing upset over the heavily favored USC Trojans in the national championship game. Heading into the Rose Bowl, however, it was apparent that the Trojans were the talk of the town, similar to the opponent that the Buccaneers are set to face in the Kansas City Chiefs.

Like Matt Leinart’s team, the Chiefs boast a fast-paced offense led by Patrick Mahomes that is, quite honestly, more difficult to stop than ever before. Though Kansas City doesn’t boast a two-headed backfield tandem, Darrell Williams has proven he can carry the load, and potentially having Le’Veon Bell can make a difference. Defensively, Devin White and the Buccaneers face a challenge.

The same can be said for their offense, going up against a talented Chiefs defense bent solely on repeating. Tom Brady against a defensive coordinator that denied him perfection? Doesn’t he want to make a statement and prove that he can still be great at the highest level? You decide.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can use other teams’ triumphs as motivation for themselves.

Let’s not get too carried away as Brady has nowhere near the running ability that Young had back in his day, and Brady is by far a better pro player. But that’s not to say he or his team haven’t faced their fair share of adversity before a big game. Young felt the same way, and it intensified at the Heisman Trophy ceremony when he lost to Bush.

Young used it to fuel his team into an upset that deviated from what the experts thought the Trojans to be. Tampa Bay can do the same thing. How does the defense feel about this challenge knowing that they came close to pulling it off last time, and now having some players back gives them a chance for redemption?

Furthermore, doesn’t Tampa Bay want to defend their home turf and not let someone else celebrate on their field? It’s a rhetorical question. Plus, didn’t the Chiefs use a play from the 1948 Rose Bowl that allowed them to earn a victory over San Francisco the previous year? They seemed to use the past to their advantage, so why can’t Tampa Bay? It’s just a thought.

The reality is clear; there is a team bent on being a back-to-back champion and another who is bent on proving that they can unseat the unstoppable force. If Tampa Bay wants this as bad as they say they do, they should look to the past on how David unseated Goliath and use all those memories to their advantage, or in this case, use the Longhorns as a form of inspiration.