The "Invincible" Vince Young

His fans call him invincible and Vince Young, who doesn't pretend to be modest, would probably agree. He's arguably the most fascinating quarterback in the NFL because he doesn't play the game the way the experts say he should. He runs too often, throws the ball all wrong, and yet, last season he was the record-breaking offensive rookie of the year and he's already talking about the Hall of Fame.

60 Minutes thought that was a lot of confidence, even arrogance, from a 24-year-old, who not long ago was just a kid running with a gang, with a father in prison and a mother on drugs.

But Young lives to prove his critics wrong. And he did it, spectacularly, at the 2006 Rose Bowl when Texas was seconds away from a devastating loss to USC.

Correspondent Scott Pelley asked Young to take us back to that moment when he was surrounded by more than 90,000 screaming fans.

"You're telling me you didn't walk out on the field and say to yourself, 'Damn, we're gonna lose this ball game'?" Pelley asks.

"I mean, I ain't even gonna lie to you, you or millions of people across the world, I was so nervous, man!" Young remembers.

Fourth down, 26 seconds to play, it was Young's last stand. "I thought I was gonna drop that ball that snap, I was so nervous. But at the same time, ya know, I didn't show that to my teammates," he recalls.

"You picked up the snap and USC's got perfect coverage, every one of your receivers blocked off," Pelley remarks.

"Perfect coverage," Young agrees.

Except one.

"Except one insane guy," he recalls, laughing. "And I just used my God-given talent in my legs and got into that end zone."

Young went for the corner and scored.

It meant the national championship for Texas, its first in 35 years. And it was sweet revenge for Young, because just the month before, sportswriters had passed him over to give the Heisman to USC's Reggie Bush.

"I was angry about that situation, not bringing it back. And I wanted to show the world that I was the real Heisman Trophy winner. But on paper, Reggie Bush is the Heisman Trophy winner. Not taking nothing from him, he know he's a phenomenal athlete," Young tells Pelley.

"But you think you're better?" Pelley asks.

"I always feel like I'm better," Young replies. "Always."

But critics haven't always agreed. Sure, he was good in college, they said, but in the NFL he'd get killed running like that. Some asked whether he could shift from a relatively simple college offense to the complex playbook in the pros.

And then there's that throw. Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher has learned to love Young's slightly off the shoulder pass, a toss that would likely be batted down if Vince weren't 6 feet 5.

Fisher tells Pelley that Young's height compensates for that "side-arm flick," especially compared to quarterbacks a few inches shorter. "This is the same place the ball's goin' on a 6-1 or 6-2 quarterback. So, it's not an issue," the coach explains.

"Before the draft -- and you know this, you've read this -- some scouts were saying, 'Vince Young is either gonna be the biggest thing in football or he's gonna be a total bust.' To those people, you say what?" Pelley asks Young.

"I love you, too," Young replies, laughing.

That laugh is a cover. He may be 233 pounds, but the skin is a little thin.

"That's what gets you going, isn't it?" Pelley asks. "People saying, Vince, you can't throw the ball that way. You can't run like that in the NFL. Not winning the Heisman Trophy. You feed on all of that."

"Yeah, I feed …" Young agrees.

"You come off the bench and say, 'Watch this,' " Pelley adds.

"All that stuff builds up in me," Young says.

And he unleashes that stuff on the field. Last year, he set the rookie quarterback record for rushing with 552 yards. He's the first rookie quarterback ever to play in the Pro Bowl, and in a game against the Giants he staged the biggest rookie comeback ever. Down 21-0 with less than 10 minutes to play, the Titans won, 24-21.

"I never doubt myself. Never. If I doubt myself then I'm gonna be a bad quarterback," Young says.

Can Fisher deal with that ego? Young has a lot of it.

"I don't see it as ego. What I see is confidence," Fisher tells Pelley. "It's a quiet confidence in his ability. And it's a passion for the game."

It was that passion and a big, lucky break that saved Young's troubled life as a kid in Houston. It was tough from the start.

At the age of 6, he was in a terrible accident, hit by a car while riding his bike. A Houston TV station covered the story of his recovery from severe internal injuries. He came out of the hospital to a home where his mother was hooked on alcohol and drugs. His father was never around, in prison three times on convictions that included burglary and theft. And Young was following his parents' lead.

"I was bad. I was real bad," Young admits.

Asked what he means by "real bad," Young tells Pelley, "You know, running with gang members. You know? You know, stealin', fightin', you know? Thinking that was cool. Like my mom said. You know, I'm gonna end up dead or in jail, crippled."

Living without a father, Young was raised by his grandmothers and his mother, Felicia.

Felicia admits she had to get after him once in a while and did not spare him any whippings. "Vince got a lot of whippings. I had to tear that tail up."

Like the time Felicia found her son in a car with the wrong crowd. "I said, 'Get out that car. If you don't get out that car,' I said, 'I'm gonna run over you. I'm gonna go crazy.' They looking at me like, 'What's wrong with this lady?' But I do know this, that it was a lot of people who was after him and it was my job to stay with them and to find out who you with," she recalls.

But there was a time Felicia admits she wasn't up to that job: she drank and was doing drugs.

There was very little money and sometimes no food in the house. Asked if he went hungry from time to time, Young tells Pelley, "Yeah, I was hungry. I was very hungry. You know, just eating those syrup sandwiches. You know, mayonnaise sandwiches."

"No meat. Had to get by with what you had," he says.

Did he ever ask his mother why he was growing up this way?

Says Young: "I knew why. Bill collectors used to call our house over and over again, you know? There was just so many people dipping into my grandmother's or my mama's pocket and then, as well as my mama, spending it on liquor and beer and drugs."

Mother and son were lost together, until lightning struck. One day, Young got into a fight at school. By the time Felicia got there, he was in handcuffs and she flipped. "I told them to take the handcuffs off. That was not necessary. But once they released them with me and when we got outside, I was so frank and I was so mad and I was so delirious. I mean, I was just upset," she remembers.

"Vincent probably wished he was back in the handcuffs," Pelley remarks.

"I just went off," Felicia recalls.

Young told Pelley that was the pivot point in his life. He was punished with yard work and for the first time he faced the public ridicule that became his driving force.

"When I was raking up them leaves, doing my punishment, you know, the kids on the bus riding by, 'Ah, Vincent,' you know, laughing at me," he explains. "It's like I was a joke. And I didn't want to be a joke no more, so I start concentrating more in football and my books. And that's when everything started to excel from there."

And not long after, Felicia found religion and quit the booze and the drugs. As a teenager, Young caught his big break: he was showing real talent on the football field and a family friend introduced him to Steve McNair, who was then the quarterback of the Tennessee Oilers. McNair invited Young to one of his summer training camps.

"He was all, already then, you know, at 16 years old, a man amongst boys," McNair remembers.

What did he see?

"His ability out-showed everybody else on that field," McNair says.

Like Young, McNair didn't see a lot of his father when he was growing up. "I saw myself in Vince, when I got the opportunity to talk to him. Because, you know, we, as young kids, when growing up, you need that man advice," he says.

Despite the fact McNair is only 10 years older, Vince calls him "Pops."

These days, Pops is playing for the Baltimore Ravens and, for the record, the first time he faced Young and the Titans, "Pops" won by one point.

Who's better? Says McNair, "I'm wiser!"

Wisdom seems to be coming slowly to young Vince Young. In a practice session over the summer, a Titan safety nailed one of Young's receivers. The quarterback reacted by getting physical on the practice field.

Young also has a problem with authority. When Pelley was in Nashville, he was late to a team meeting and, last year, Young was late for the team plane. Coach Fisher decided to leave without him.

They spoke on the cell phone, with the plane on the runway. "The conversation went like this, 'Vince.' 'What?' 'This is Jeff.' 'What?' 'Vince, look, things come up, I understand. You're late. That's OK. You need -- U.S. Air rep's gonna call you in about five minutes. Be on the U.S. Air flight to Philadelphia.' And I said, 'Vince, you need to be on that airplane.' He says, 'I'm not coming.' But he made it in after probably 11 or 12 in the evening. And we settled him down and then he went out and won the game for us," Fisher remembers.

"He's got a temper," Pelley remarks.

"I think he was embarrassed," Fisher says.

How did Young feel when the plane left without him?

"Oh, man. I, like I told coach, I told him I felt like it was like, you know, F him, you know? I was just so mad. I was to the point that I didn't wanna play," Young recalls.

Asked what he learned from that, Young says, laughing, "Be on time."

Timing is everything and today the kid who ate syrup sandwiches has a five-year contract that could be worth $58 million, not to mention endorsement deals worth another $30 million, deals that include Reebok, Madden '08, and the National Dairy Council. His past is washed away, except for the rift with his father, Vince Sr., who was released from prison on a burglary conviction just a few months ago.

Young has not seen his father. Asked how he feels about him, he says, "I mean, I love my pop. But I don't like what he did."

"He has said that he's very proud of you, that he watched your ball games from prison," Pelley remarks.

"I mean, he's proud of the athlete Vince Young. But is he proud of me as a man?" Young asks.

Vince Young has one bridge to mend and many more to cross. But who would count out the athlete who predicted that he would take Texas to the championship and did, who set his sights on being rookie of the year and was, and who said on leaving college that he would add this name to the NFL Hall of Fame.

Asked if he's going to the playoffs, Young tells Pelley, "We working on it right now. I wanna say, you know, I'm not trying to predict it right now. But how we looking right now, we have a big shot at it."

"People have told you to calm down on your predictions, haven't they?" Pelley asks.

"No," Young says, laughing.

"No?" Pelley asks.

Says Young, "Can't nobody tell me nothing."

Produced By Tom Anderson