Cutting deep in the heart of Texas

Last time it was fourth and five for Texas football, Vince Young used his legs to run eight yards for the game-winning touchdown against USC in the Rose Bowl.

This time, Young can only run his mouth.

The greatest Longhorn since Earl Campbell visited Austin for last week’s game and witnessed the horror of a 20-point loss to Kansas State.

Texas is the shakiest 4-1 gun in the Southwest as it prepares to meet somewhat-tipsy-itself Oklahoma in Saturday’s Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl.

The loser drops to 0-2 in the Big 12 South and, if it is Texas, it will be worse than that.

Defeat will magnify Mack Brown malaise in a year so far low-lighted by field performance and field sobriety tests.

Six Texas players have been arrested since June.

Rumor has it Bevo was recently questioned, and later released, by Austin police . . . something about disturbing the peace with big horns.

When you’re down, people make jokes, your integrity gets questioned and Young has to come in on a bye week to wail his alma mater out.

“We all know there are a lot of parties to go to,” Young told the Dallas Morning News. “But we don’t need all this off-the-field stuff.”

The on-field stuff hasn’t been so great either.

Saturday’s sad sacking by Kansas State was the most humbling home defeat in Brown’s 10-gallon-hat tenure -- and the first time in the school’s 115-year football history an opponent scored touchdowns on kickoff, punt and interception returns.

Colt McCoy, the normally sure-fire sophomore quarterback, who last year passed for a school-record 29 touchdowns and only seven interceptions, has eight touchdowns and nine interceptions through five games.

Kansas State picked him off four times and knocked him out of the game twice.

McCoy’s favorite rock band may be AC/DC but, after suffering too many head butts and waves of nausea, the Texas medical staff last week had to pull the plug.

McCoy was expected to play Saturday.

Brown says Texas is not in a desperate state.

“Desperation to me is a bad word,” Brown said. “That’s used for Katrina and some other things. It’s not used for sports.”

It is one thing for outside pontificators to question a proud program’s present predicament; quite another when the call-out comes from your most fearless and selfless leader.

Young said after the Kansas State game that Texas players needed to “pull together.”

He said the reason Texas beat Oklahoma and USC in 2005 was because there were “no me-guys. . . . “

Texas has lost 16 players to the NFL the last two years, yes, but what it lost more than anything was Young’s take-charge hold.

“Not everyone is a leader,” Young said. “Not everyone wants that kind of pressure. Not everyone wants to be the one to tell a star guy on your football team, ‘You need to slow down.’ ”

Texas players can only hope Young’s challenge hits Texas in the solar plexus.

“There’s no better person that could put it in that perspective,” junior receiver Quan Cosby said.

Senior defensive lineman Frank Okam thinks Young’s outburst may be just what Dr. Brown ordered.

“This is about football,” Okam said. “This is about your life. Doing right things on and off the field reflect your character and what you stand for as a person. So I feel like for him to say that and for guys to take that to heart . . . will be beneficial to the team.”

Texas is hardly the first team to win a national title and then walk wobbly down an alley.

Several title runs in recent history have been followed by an increase in late-night activity and NCAA inquiries.

The sport is built on Machiavellian tenets: win first, take depositions later.

Staying focused is always tougher when drinks are always on the house.

It was harder for Ohio State in 2002 with all that went on with Maurice Clarett. Consecutive titles for USC did not come without a scurrilous element.

Florida, last year’s national champion, has sunken to swamp levels at times with a barrage of legal litter. Eight Gators have had trouble with the law in the last nine months.

Texas under Brown has always held itself to high standards, yet the recent news has been embarrassing.

Brown took responsibility in September when running back James Henry, charged with two felony counts, became the sixth Longhorns player to have his mug shot taken.

Brown acted swiftly and offered that the issues were “devastating to me personally.”

He said this week that part of the problem is coaches not being able to spend more time with players during the summer.

Brown said he has dealt with more issues in the last six months than he had in the previous 23 years.

“But our team’s really trying to do things right on and off the field,” Brown said.

“Usually if you have an issue off the field, especially at a place like Texas, where you’re not used to it, I think it makes you stronger as a team.”

Brown would not draw a correlation between off-field issues and the Longhorns bus right now hitting on about two of eight cylinders.

“This team has been inconsistent, some on the field, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the off-the-field issues,” he said. “We just have to get better.”

Cosby says the arrests are isolated incidents and the trouble is now contained.

“I think the mood more than anything has been to address it but move on,” he said. “And just sort of coach each other. And let the other guys know that it’s not the way that it goes around here. . . . We still have, in my opinion, a very clean team.”

The bottom line is that Young is in the NFL now, leading the Tennessee Titans.

He can’t come back to Austin every week and bark out commands.

If it’s fourth and five again in Austin -- and somebody else needs to step up.

Blitz package

* Louisiana State has reached No. 1 in the Associated Press poll for the first time since Nov. 7, 1959. Say what? Didn’t LSU win the national title in 2003?

The Tigers, remember, won the Bowl Championship Series title that year, with USC claiming the AP share.

* Don’t be too concerned by Florida’s home loss to Auburn last week. A bounce back win over LSU this week in Baton Rouge puts the No. 9 Gators right back into title contention.

* Boston College Coach Jeff Jagodzinski, on his Eagles being ranked No. 7 this week: “I want to stay as anonymous as we can.” Lose to Bowling Green this week and that won’t be a problem.

* Mark this down: The Heisman Trophy this year will be awarded to . . . somebody. Right now, though, the downtown dinner entrée is mystery meat. Almost all the preseason favorites suffered recent fender dings.

Sinking: Colt Brennan of Hawaii (five interceptions last week); USC’s John David Booty (he was nearly John David Botched-it at Washington); Steve Slaton and Pat White at West Virginia (lost at South Florida); Rutgers’ Ray Rice (lost to Maryland); McCoy at Texas (more interceptions than touchdowns), Oregon’s Dennis Dixon (threw two late interceptions in loss to California).

Status quo: Darren McFadden of Arkansas (probably the best offensive player out there, but how many losses more than two can a campaign sustain?).

Rising: Andre Woodson of Kentucky (might win if the vote was taken today), Cal’s DeSean Jackson (rebounded from a three-catch week to a game-changing performance against Oregon); Tim Tebow of Florida (only a sophomore, but what a player).

* One reason great programs are great: You have to bull-wrestle victories out of them. USC has lost four games since the 2002 season by a total of 12 points.

Four of Oklahoma’s last five losses were decided on the game’s final play: Last week at Colorado (field goal); last year against Boise State in Fiesta Bowl (two-point conversion); last year at Oregon (blocked Oklahoma field goal attempt) and 2005 at Texas Tech (touchdown).

* There might have been another controversy involving Pacific 10 Conference officials at Oregon had Cal not rallied to win last Saturday’s game in Eugene. In the third quarter, Cal kicker Jordan Kay appeared to make a 33-yard field goal -- but his kick was judged to be wide left.

“I tried to find a different camera angle,” Cal Coach Jeff Tedford said on a Monday conference call. “The one they showed on TV, it sure looked good. But sometimes the camera angles are deceiving. You’ve got to think the guy standing under the goal post, how could he miss that? But stranger things have happened. The explanation we got was that it went directly over the top and it’s got to be inside.”

Solution: Taller goal posts?

chris.dufresne@latimes.com