Reggie Was Right
The Moment Everyone Misunderstood
Rose Bowl, 2006. Reggie Bush—mid-sprint, mid-magic, mid-freakin-Heisman—saw something no one else did.
Three Texas defenders were converging. The sideline was closing. Most backs go down there, take the yards, live for the next snap.
Bush didn’t.
He pitched the ball.
It hit the ground. Texas recovered. And for almost twenty years, football has treated that decision like a cardinal sin.
“Selfish.”
“Reckless.”
“Trying to do too much.”
But here’s the truth: the pitch was perfect. The math was sound. The read was elite. The system just wasn’t ready.
The Geometry Was Genius
Bush had two options:
Option A: Keep the ball, get tackled by three defenders. Maybe gain 3 yards.
Option B: Lateral to Brad Walker—who had 35 yards of open grass, no in front of him, and a footrace
Expected value of Option A? Minimal.
Expected value of Option B? 2x the yardage and a shot at a touchdown.
It was a game theory decision—a dominant strategy. The kind of thing John Nash would diagram on a chalkboard and label “obvious.”
But there was a problem. Walker wasn’t looking. Not because he was slow. Not because he was unprepared. But because no one had trained him to expect it.
USC’s system, like most in modern football, didn’t believe in the second play—the one that starts after the design ends.
The System Was Wrong
Football punished Bush for being ahead of his time.
That same lateral had worked before—at Helix High, in the state title game, Bush made the same decision. It scored. His teammate was ready. Because in high school football, players are still allowed to see.
At USC? Players were trained to execute their part and nothing more. Brad Walker was executing perfectly—as a blocker.
But he wasn’t allowed to imagine the ball coming back to him.
Reggie was right.
The system wasn’t.
The Lesson We Missed
The real mistake wasn't the pitch—it was the programming.
Modern football has optimized for symmetry, safety, system discipline. But it forgot how to see plays as they evolve.
Football became an assembly line. The lateral was jazz.
Bush played both games—the one on the whiteboard and the one in the grass.
Brad Walker didn’t know there was a second play.