Oh, to be Young again

Maybe he knew the good times couldn’t last.

It was the fall of 2005 and Vince Young ruled supreme over college football, leading Texas toward an undefeated season and a showdown with top-ranked USC in the national-championship game.

Even then, when it seemed no defense could stop him, the gifted quarterback warned his eventual successor, Colt McCoy, about dealing with success.

“You’ve got to grow a thick skin,” he told the freshman.

McCoy recalls: “That’s the biggest thing we talked about. When you’re doing great, everybody loves you and when you’re doing bad, there are a lot of people who turn on you. You can’t listen to either one of them.”

Maybe Young could see the hard times coming.

Exactly three years since his shining moment in the Bowl Championship Series national title game at the 2006 Rose Bowl -- remember Young sprinting across the goal line in the final seconds, howling amid confetti that flickered from the night sky? -- a football career hangs in the balance.

The 25-year-old former college superstar and NFL rookie of the year has lost his starting job with the Tennessee Titans amid questions about his ability to handle pressure. There was a bizarre, and much-publicized, incident earlier this season that by various accounts had him sulking, depressed, even suicidal, all of which he has denied.

No matter what happened, Young’s reversal of fortune has been swift and dramatic, and something that neither he nor team officials were willing to discuss for this story.

It is left for others to chart the trajectory of his career, the path that took him from then to now.

State of mind

Through the front gate of the Texas football offices, into the lobby, it is hard to walk more than a few steps without seeing a photograph or a trophy, some reminder of the man who some call the greatest pure athlete in school history.

The coaches, who still communicate with Young regularly, insist he has the pride and wherewithal to, as offensive coordinator Greg Davis put it, “come out the end of this cloud.”

“I think he’s a young man who probably got down,” Longhorns Coach Mack Brown said. “He got frustrated.”

The situation came to a boil during 48 hours in early September.

Late in the Titans’ home opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Young threw his second interception of the day and was booed off the field. He slumped on the bench and did not budge when Tennessee got the ball back.

There was an exchange with Coach Jeff Fisher, who later said they were discussing Young’s tight hamstring, after which the third-year quarterback joined his offense on the field. A few plays later, he sprained his knee.

Things turned stranger the next evening when, according to a team statement, “we received a call from people that are closest to Vince informing us that he had left his house in a state of mind that had them concerned; and that he was unreachable.” Young kept a gun in his car and had reportedly talked to a therapist about suicide, so the Titans contacted police.

A few hours later, Young turned up at a friend’s house and the team said any concerns about his emotional well-being proved “unfounded.” But soon after, Felicia Young told The Tennessean that her son was “hurting inside and out” and might quit football.

Another round of clarifications followed, Young insisting that his mother was mistaken. He merely needed time to clear his head and, if anything, was upset about the knee injury.

“I was never depressed,” he told reporters, adding: “It’s a hard time because I’m a competitor, and I definitely want to be out on the football field with my teammates.”

But, according to team insiders, the coaching staff was miffed about Young’s sulking and even Fisher conceded that “he definitely needs to work through some things.”

That feeling

If it’s true that Young was upset at Tennessee fans booing him in the opener, it wasn’t the first time he had felt the wrath of a hometown crowd. During his sophomore season in 2004, Texas lost to Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, then returned home and struggled early against Missouri.

“They booed him, they yelled at him,” Brown said. “To think that he is so spoiled that he never got yelled at, was never criticized, in fact I benched him in the middle of the Missouri game.”

The Longhorns coaches remain confident that their former protege can rebound if only because they saw him do it in Austin.

As a redshirt freshman, he was pulled during the latter stages of the 2003 Holiday Bowl against Washington State, a game that Texas lost. Walking back into the football offices in January, he announced: “I don’t ever want that to happen again. I don’t ever want that feeling again.”

Young had always been a physical specimen, devoted to conditioning, but coaches told him that he needed to spend more time studying opponents. They say he became a constant presence in the film room.

“From that point on,” Davis said, “he started growing into the real deal.”

The offensive coordinator suspects that Young is facing a different sort of challenge now -- he can tell by the text messages they exchange.

“One thing about the college game is that, at the end of the day, you put up the pads, you go to leave and you still go with all your teammates, you still go eat with them, you still are functioning as an insulated family,” Davis said. “And that insulation is always a constant feedback of positive support.

“At the end of the pro day, they leave their business and they go home to their families and kids.”

Proud Young guy

It might have been easier for Young if his hometown NFL team, the Houston Texans, had selected him with the No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft. Instead, he went to the Titans at the No. 3 spot.

Tennessee’s offensive coordinator at the time, Norm Chow, says the on-field adjustment, tough for any college quarterback, was even tougher for Young given the offensive scheme Texas ran.

The Longhorns used a “zone read” offense, a form of option that kept opposing defenses off-balance with Young’s considerable running skills. Tennessee employed some of that in his rookie season, resulting in a number of spectacular plays, but this success was short-lived.

“Defenses are so good in the NFL that they caught on and they weren’t going to let him run,” said Chow, now at UCLA. “If Vince Young was going to help the Titans win a game, he was going to have to throw the ball.”

Young compensated for an unconventional three-quarters passing motion with a strong arm and quick release, but Chow said he lacked the experience to read pro defenses. In his second season, while leading Tennessee into the playoffs with a 10-6 record, he suffered through 17 interceptions against only nine touchdown passes.

“Vince is a very proud young guy and it frustrates the heck out of him,” Chow said. “But in pro football, because there are 16 games you’ve got to play, you can’t let that get in the way.”

After Young injured his knee in September, Kerry Collins stepped in and took over the top spot, playing largely mistake-free, guiding Tennessee to a 13-3 finish and the AFC South title. Watching from afar, Chow figures the team made a simple football decision in sticking with the veteran.

“Kerry Collins is a consummate professional, he studies, he works hard at it,” Chow said. “He played so well they had to keep him on the field.”

And what of the speculation concerning Young, the questions about his emotional maturity?

“I think all that’s hogwash,” Chow said. “He’ll be fine.”

‘Worrying about things’

On the final weekend of the NFL regular season, Young played two-plus quarters of a meaningless game against the Indianapolis Colts. He passed for 55 yards and ran for 25 -- not much to get excited about -- yet he sounded pleased afterward.

“It was pretty good to get in there and get that rush,” he said. “I told the guys earlier that my body feels good and [I] didn’t want to throw any interceptions.”

Tennessee tight end Bo Scaife, a former Longhorn, added: “I was happy to see him out there.”

For now, the Titans say Young remains their quarterback of the future. Team owner Bud Adams told The Tennessean, “Vince is under contract for three more years, so he is not going anywhere.”

But will Young stick around that long?

It isn’t just his mother who has mentioned early retirement. Last spring, he told NFL.com that he considered walking away after a rookie-of-the-year season in which “all I was doing was worrying about things.”

Back in Austin, Brown wasn’t surprised by that comment. The coach said that he and Young have similar personalities.

“After every loss I’ve thought about quitting,” he said. “If something doesn’t go the way Texas wants it to go, I put all the blame back on me and he’s got a tendency to do the same thing.

“I don’t think it’s healthy in the short term. Long term, it probably keeps you motivated.”

Maybe that’s why Young and McCoy had those talks back in college. The older quarterback was trying to prepare his understudy for the constant scrutiny, the victories and the aggravations.

Now that McCoy is in the limelight, guiding Texas into the Fiesta Bowl on Monday night, he keeps in mind what Young told him: “You just need to stay level-headed.”

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david.wharton@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Picking over the 2006 draft

The first round of the 2006 NFL draft is still debated often. Houston decided to select Mario Williams with the first pick over the consensus top choice, Reggie Bush. In hindsight, it might have been great foresight. And then there were the quarterbacks. A look at the first round:

*--* No. Player Pos. School NFL team 1. Mario Williams DE N.C. State Houston 2. Reggie Bush RB USC New Orleans 3. Vince Young QB Texas Tennessee *--*

- Young was voted offensive rookie of the year and selected to the Pro Bowl. He threw for 12 touchdowns and rushed for seven. In 2007, the Titans went 10-6 and lost to San Diego in the wild-card round. This season, he watched veteran quarterback Kerry Collins lead the Titans to a 13-3 record and a first-round bye.

*--* 4. D’Brickashaw Ferguson T Virginia N.Y. Jets 5. A.J. Hawk OLB Ohio State Green Bay 6. Vernon Davis TE Maryland San Francisco 7. Michael Huff SS Texas Oakland 8. Donte Whitner SS Ohio State Buffalo 9. Ernie Sims OLB Florida State Detroit 10. Matt Leinart QB USC Arizona *--*

- Leinart and Young met in the Rose Bowl in January 2006 in what is considered one of the greatest college football games. Young and Texas won the game, 41-38. Leinart played in 12 games in 2006 and threw for 2,547 yards. He played in five games last year, alternating with Kurt Warner, and then broke his collarbone, ending his season. This season, Warner was named the starter and led the Cardinals to the playoffs.

*--* 11. Jay Cutler QB Vanderbilt Denver *--*

- Cutler finished the 2006 season as the Broncos’ starter after unseating veteran Jake Plummer. In 2007 and 2008, Cutler threw 20 and 25 touchdown passes, respectively. Earned a Pro Bowl selection this season even though the Broncos faltered late in the season and missed the playoffs.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, pro-footballreference.com and the NFL