Granite Bay graduate Sartz might have made a difference against Texas

Just a thought; how many yards do you think University of Texas quarterback Vince Young would have run for against Southern California in Wednesday's national championship game if linebacker Dallas Sartz had been in a Trojans' uniform?If you answered 300, go wash your mouth out with soap.Wednesday should have marked the final game of a very good career at USC for Sartz, who spent his high school days playing safety for a pair of Sac-Joaquin Section championship teams at Granite Bay High, and started for the Trojans' 2003 and '04 national title teams. It would have been his last game, except for the dislocated shoulder he suffered Sept. 17 against Arkansas. That forced Sartz to redshirt this season, and means he will be a senior again when the 2006 campaign kicks off in the fall. It also forced Sartz to roam the Rose Bowl sidelines Wednesday in Pasadena in street clothes, helpless to do anything to slow the transcendent performance by Young, who threw for 267 yards, ran for 200 more and three touchdowns, and almost single-handedly led the Longhorns to a 41-38 victory."It was frustrating. Watching from the sideline is something no player wants to have happen, especially in a national championship game," Sartz said Thursday from Los Angeles."It's difficult not to play in any game. But with so much on the line, it was definitely tough. I don't think I sat still for a minute. I was pacing up and down the sideline. I don't know if it was excitement or frustration."Sartz had already experienced plenty of frustration in 2005 after suffering the first major injury of his football career. In the Trojans' second game of the season he found himself tussling with an Arkansas fullback near the sideline away from the play, and tried to disengage by throwing the player to the ground. Instead, he was dragged to the ground and fell with all of his weight on his left forearm.Sartz didn't know it at the time, but he had dislocated his shoulder and torn the labrum away from the bone. Surgery near the end of October marked the full-fledged start to his rehabilitation, but he is still limited in what football-related things he can do. His shoulder is still too stiff and tender for him to lift weights, and spring practice is likely out since he isn't allowed participate in contact drills until six to nine months after his surgery."There's nothing I can do about that now," he said. "My goal right now is to get faster and stronger, get back into it. I have another year to get better."There's also little Sartz can do now to change the gloomy mood he and his teammates woke up with Thursday morning. A championship victory party had been planned for Wednesday night at the hotel USC stayed in prior to the Rose Bowl. Instead, most of the players simply went home.Sartz's injury was one in a series of graduation or injury related changes in the Trojans' starting defense from 2004 to 2005. Maybe the senior's on-field presence wouldn't have guaranteed a third straight title for USC, but the absence of his skill and experience didn't help."From a defensive standpoint, it came down to not being able to tackle Vince Young," Sartz said. "We were sloppy; we did a lot of arm tackling and didn't wrap up."Vince Young is one of the greatest college football players I've ever seen aside from (USC's) Reggie (Bush) and Matt (Leinart). He ran silly on us."