THE LONE STEER STATE

It used to be that you could be Vince Young in Texas and once in a while sneak into IHOP for breakfast.

You could pull your hood over your head and maybe get away with ordering a Denver omelet, but how long ago was that?

Last time Young tried it, he turned the joint into the International House of Photo-Op.

He noticed the restaurant staff making bets over whether it was really Vince Young the Texas quarterback.

Yes it is.

No it isn’t.

Yes it was.

“Sometimes you want to sit there and be a regular person,” Young says.

Young does not complain much about being the star attraction in the Lone Star State, a Houston-born hero who found tranquillity just steps from the Capitol steps, the quarterback of a Texas team bound for a Jan. 4 Rose Bowl date with USC for the national title.

“I know the eyes of Texas are upon us,” teammate Jonathan Scott said last week, “but I know the eyes are really upon him.”

Young, a junior, probably won’t win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night in New York -- his oh-my-goodness highlight tape coming up short against USC tailback Reggie Bush’s you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me reel.

But Young has won Texas many times over.

He is 29-2 as a starter, has al-ready been most valuable player of a Rose Bowl (last season’s against Michigan), threw the 24-yard game-winning touchdown pass in September to beat Ohio State in Columbus, and became the first Texas quarterback since 1999 to post a win over archrival Oklahoma.

“Reggie and Matt [Leinart] are both great football players,” Texas Coach Mack Brown says of USC’s talented tag team, “but I don’t think we would be sitting here today without Vince.”

Saturday, after leading a 70-3 romp over Colorado at Houston’s Reliant Stadium, the 6-foot-5, 233-pound Young skipped around the field like the child who grew up only blocks from this latest triumph.

Is it tough signing autographs for hours on end for kids who look up at you with big, doe-like eyes?

Sometimes.

Is it hard having your passing motion dissected like that frog in Biology 101, your every sideline mood analyzed by pop psychologists who, for example, equated your sullen sideline body language against Texas A&M; with knowing you had lost the Heisman to Bush?

Sure.

Being the Texas quarterback, though, beats the alternatives, which included:

* Being Dead.

The Vince Young story could have ended when he was 7 when, while riding his bike and daydreaming of a girl, he was struck by a car at Tidewater Drive and Buxley Street, not far from his home.

The handlebars of his bike were shoved into his midsection and he suffered massive internal injuries.

“I remember my sister crying, and waking up in the hospital,” Young says.

Young almost didn’t wake up.

“My baby almost died,” recalls Felicia Young, his mother. “I was scared. He was scared. You know what? It was predestined. I thank God for saving my child. Lord, look at him today.”

Young doesn’t like talking about the accident, except to say it reminds him about what may be coming around life’s corner.

“Pay attention,” he says, “because anything can happen. Something’s going good and then bang, I got hit by a car.”

* Being Incarcerated.

This, too, is where Young may have been headed, seeing as how his father will have to get Rose Bowl updates from prison in Houston, where he has been a guest for committing several crimes -- the latest a burglary charge that got him 16 years.

With Dad out of the picture, and Mom battling her own demons, and Vince left to fend with two older sisters in the Hiram-Clarke neighborhood of Houston, well, you might guess the rest.

Young started hanging out with the “Bloods,” because, he said, it was join-or-else.

“You got no choice but to hang out or they beat you up every day,” Young says. “I didn’t want to get beat up every day.”

One day, in the spring of Young’s seventh-grade year at Dowling Middle School, a fight broke out between rival gangs.

Young got hauled off in handcuffs, which incensed his mother when she arrived at police headquarters.

“At that point I was in a rage,” she recalls. “I told them, ‘Take the handcuffs off, that’s not the conception I want my child to have.’ ”

It is safe to call that day a turning point.

Young promised to straighten up and so, too, did Mrs. Young.

“If I kept running with that crowd, there’d be no Vince Young,” he says. “I’d be in so much trouble it would be ridiculous.”

Vince hadn’t been interested much in sports to that point, but mom gave son a choice of trying football or washing dishes after school.

“He thought washing dishes was for girls,” Felicia says. “I said, ‘You better make your mind up.’ He said, ‘OK, Mom, I’m going to play some football.’ ”

As a sophomore, Young became the starting quarterback at Madison High and he’s been mesmerizing viewing audiences ever since.

His college decision, Miami or Texas, tipped the balance of college football and tipped Texas toward a chance for its first national title in 35 years.

And, along the way, he put together quite a few memorable moments:

* Last season, Texas trailed Oklahoma State, 35-7, at home, before Young led a 49-point blitz.

* In the 2005 Rose Bowl victory over Michigan, Young dropped jaws by rushing for 192 yards and four touchdowns and passing for 180 and a touchdown.

* At Ohio State this year, he hit Limas Sweed for the game-winning touchdown with 2 minutes 37 seconds left.

* Against Oklahoma State, Texas trailed, 28-9, before winning, 47-28. Young amassed 506 total yards rushing and passing.

Young has the highest winning percentage -- .935 -- of any quarterback in Texas history. His 44 touchdown passes rank fifth on the school list, and he is sixth on the rushing list with 2,888 yards, with 34 touchdowns.

Young has never lost his sense of home, or humor.

As rough as growing up could be, he remembers giggling a lot.

“My grandma, sisters and me, we’re all clowns,” he says. “If you came to dinner with us, you’ll all be crying laughing.

“It’s helped me, just me being relaxed, not being uptight. When you’re uptight, all kinds of bad things can happen.”

During tense moments on Texas’ final drive against Ohio State, Young told his linemen to turn around and take a good look at the Buckeye defense.

“Don’t they look ugly?” Young said, prompting an outburst.

As the offense approached the line of scrimmage against Oklahoma, panicked Longhorn linemen turned around, convinced the Sooners knew what play was coming.

Young said, “OK, they know the play! After we score we’ll laugh about it.”

Then he threw a touchdown pass to Billy Pittman ... and they all laughed.

The one thing people don’t know about Vince Young?

“He’s a very quiet person,” his mother says. “... Even though he laughs, he knows his purpose in life.”

Felicia recalls times when Vince would sit off by himself during games.

“I’d ask him, ‘Why are you over by yourself?’ ” she said. “And he said he sees visions of how the next play is going to be.”

Young still has issues to resolve.

There is a second Rose Bowl to win -- this one for the national title -- and then an NFL career, which is sure to include an expert or two who will try to change his unorthodox throwing motion.

Brown, his coach, has already predicted a Hall of Fame career for Young.

Felicia says Vince will someday come to terms with his father, although today is not that day.

She tells Vince: “Look, God didn’t put your dad in your life because of the wrong things he had done. If he had been in the home with us, just think about the influence that there would have been. Those things were shielded from you.”

Will Vince Young Sr. try to get back in his son’s life around the time he signs his first NFL contract? Vince says he’s coming back for his senior year at Texas, so that worry may be deferred.

Felicia says Vince has told her he isn’t ready to deal with his dad.

“I said, ‘Son, nobody’s going to push it.’ ”

She also says: “If Vincent can’t talk to his dad, how could he talk to his own son?”

Felicia is amazed that word of her son’s exploits is reaching far corners.

“It is going from breath to breath,” she says. “Vincent doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows people like him, and they like the football. But he hasn’t grasped the touch that God put on him.”

Vince says he will never forget his past, because it helped him shape his present.

He will always come back to Houston, to the street where he lived, if only to take inventory of the “woulda-coulda” guys “I didn’t want to end up like.”

Sometimes, Young will sit in his front yard and ponder why they cut down his favorite tree.

He’ll peer from the porch and remember the bike accident that almost ended it all.

“I got hit on that corner,” Young will say.

Home?

“You’ve got to go home, back to your roots, and just sit there and think about what I did on that corner.”

And, perhaps more incredibly, what he has done since.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Heisman Hopefuls

Times college football writer Chris Dufresne ranks his top five Heisman Trophy candidates. Ceremony: Saturday, New York, 5 p.m., PST, ESPN:

1. REGGIE BUSH

* USC RB: Averaging 217.58 all-purpose yards per game.

* Comment: Just like against UCLA, Bush has turned the corner on the Heisman race and is running away from the field.

2. VINCE YOUNG

* Texas QB: Winning percentage of .935 is best in Longhorn history.

* Comment: His one bad game, against Texas A&M;, came at wrong time. Probably would win the Heisman this year if not for Bush.

3. MATT LEINART

* USC QB: He’s 37-1 as a starter and won the Heisman last season.

* Comment: He hasn’t been as consistently good this season, but his play on final drive against Notre Dame is part of college football lore.

4. BRADY QUINN

* Notre Dame QB: Passed for 320 yards a game, rare for Irish QB.

* Comment: Punch him in as next year’s winner so long as he doesn’t get hurt and Charlie Weis is still calling the plays for the Irish.

5. ELVIS DUMERVIL

* Louisville DE: Leads the nation in sacks (20) and forced fumbles (10).

* Comment: Takes over spot reserved for Drew Olson until 66-19. Defensive players don’t win the Heisman, but Dumervil deserves credit.

**

One-man team

Texas junior quarterback Vince Young ranks ninth in the nation in total offense this season, averaging 301.6 yards per game. As a team, the Longhorns average 508.4 yards per game. A game-by-game breakdown:

*--* YOUNG TEXAS Opponent, Result Rush Pass Rush Pass Louisiana Lafayette, 60-3 W 49 173 418 173 Ohio State, 25-22 W 76 270 112 270 Rice, 51-10 W 77 101 361 122 Missouri, 51-20 W 108 236 349 236 Oklahoma, 45-12 45 241 203 241 Colorado, 42-17 W 58 336 145 337 Texas Tech, 52-17 W 45 239 205 239 Oklahoma State, 47-28 W 267 239 367 239 Baylor, 62-0 W 53 298 347 298 Kansas, 66-14 W -4 281 336 281 Texas A&M;, 40-29 W 19 162 174 162 Colorado, 70-3 W 57 193 268 218

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