The last time we saw Vince Young, the Texas quarterback was awash in confetti, standing amid the adulation and glory that went with winning the national championship.

Now he’s in the NFL meat grinder otherwise known as pre-draft analysis. That’s the time period when teams start scouting college players in earnest and finding fault and problems no matter how glorious a player’s college career.

In Young’s case, it could not have been more glorious – or ended better.

Young had the game of a century for Texas in leading the Longhorns to a national-title win over USC. He threw and ran for 467 yards and three touchdowns – including the national-title winner with 19 seconds left.

Facing the best competition college football could offer, Young seemed to be on a different plane. He glided through runs, made play after play and avoided tacklers as if they were moving in slow motion.

“I’m not sure there has been a game by a quarterback that has ever been better,” said Bill Rees, the Cleveland Browns’ director of player personnel.

Now however, the NFL does not know what to do with Young.

“I don’t know who you compare him to,” Ravens coach Brian Billick said. “I think that makes people uncomfortable.”

Clearly, Young could be the most intriguing player in the draft, set for April 29 and 30.

He conceivably could go first overall to the Houston Texans (though the smart money there is on USC running back Reggie Bush), and he conceivably could be on the board when the Browns draft 12th.

That would pose the interesting question: What would the Browns do if Young were still available? Apparently, the Browns want to make sure they know; Young will visit on Friday.

“I think the question on him, at least in my mind, is the fact he has operated in a shotgun offense with pretty ‘vanilla’ reads, and if those reads weren’t there, he could take off and run,” Browns General Manager Phil Savage said.

“You could do that in the NFL to a degree, but there does seem to be a little bit more structure in the league than in the college game...

“I think you would have to adjust your system, and if he came on your team, you’d have to have two different offenses in a way, and I’m not sure you have time to prepare all of that.”

There go those NFL types again – picking at a guy who was simply amazing.

“You knew we were going to beat him up,” Billick said. “He was just too good to be true.”

Rees said Young’s biggest transition will be similar to the one Alex Smith went through last season in San Francisco.

“Vince Young is more of a spread-offense guy, where he takes a great majority of snaps in the shotgun,” Rees said. “He is not dissimilar to a number of other quarterbacks who have had great success in that offense and didn’t immediately make the transition to taking the snap and dropping back. You saw that last year with Smith.

“He ran a very similar style of offense. That’s the transition that Vince Young and Smith and other quarterbacks who play in that system have to make in the NFL.”

Young is sort of like Michael Vick – and he’s not. At 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, he has size that Vick lacks. He also can throw. Young completed 65 percent of his passes and tied a Texas record with 26 touchdown passes his junior season. (He declared for the draft a year early.)

You want runs? Young averaged 6.8 yards per carry and rushed for more than 1,000 yards. In two seasons, he threw for 44 touchdowns and ran for 37 in leading Texas to 23 wins in 24 games.

Still, the pros don’t know what to do with him.

“He’s a spectacular talent, but he doesn’t look like anybody,” Billick said. “So that tends to make us all nervous. He gets downgraded for that.”

That did not stop the Ravens from bringing Young in for a visit. The Ravens pick 13th, one spot after the Browns.

Another problem is that even though Rees said it’s a positive that Young can run, NFL teams traditionally do not know what to make of or do with running quarterbacks.

Give the league a stand-up, drop-back player and it will find all kind of pass routes for him.

Give the same coaches a guy who can run, and they get scared he’ll get hurt or nervous he’ll run too much.

“I think a lot of people are still narrow-minded when it comes to accepting alternate ways on how to play a position,” Falcons coach Jim Mora said. “We see that with Mike (Vick) all the time, obviously. People want him to be something he’s not. What we want him to be is a guy that leads our team to wins and that’s what he does for the most part.

“I guess it’s human nature. If it’s different, we’re resistant to it for a while.”

“Vince Young is a freak,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden said. “Athletically, he’s just a freak in what he can do. He’s amazing. He’s big, he’s athletic, he’s agile and he can throw the ball well.

“You’ve got to have a plan...that suits him, which is part of coaching.”

It’s not hard to think of the league’s plan being one that forces Young into the old formula: Drop back and throw, and run only in emergencies.

NFL coaches have complex defenses. They believe the overall speed makes it tough for running quarterbacks.

“A guy like Vince Young, I don’t care, he’s going to have to protect himself,” Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said. “Michael Vick is going to have to protect himself. Sooner or later, it’s going to wear on a guy and he’s going to get hurt.”

Gruden, however, doesn’t think that should handicap Young.

“Those guys (who can run), they present major problems,” he said. “You get four or five guys out in a route and you have to cover ’em. Then scramble lanes develop and these guys can take over games. And when they fake the ball to these great backs and they come out by themselves, they become extremely dangerous.

“So this guy’s got rare ability, rare physical ability.”

Red flags also were raised about Young when word leaked he had done poorly on a test, called the Wonderlic, given at the NFL Scouting Combine.

Coaches now are doing their best to say they are overlooking the Wonderlic.

“All that probably told me, because I’ve been around Vince Young and watched him communicate with people, is that he probably never took the test before,” Shanahan said.

“I don’t feel like he has any limitations,” said Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher, who has personally worked out Young. “He communicated well. He’s engaging, has a great personality. He’s enthusiastic.”

Said Gruden: “When you start criticizing a guy because of his test score, I think you get into dangerous territory there.”

The other “pick” at Young is his slingshot throwing motion. The ball seems to come out low, which could lead to his throws being knocked down.

Savage, however, said a Browns scout told him that if you just watched the ball come out, it looked no different than any other quarterback.

“His workout was super,” said Texans coach Gary Kubiak. “He did a great job. He put on a show. He made every throw.”

“I think he’s a lot better at throwing the football than people give him credit for,” Shanahan said.

Then there’s this intangible: When Young scored the game-winning touchdown against USC, when his play won Texas a national title, he merely trotted into the end zone and stood amid the band. With chaos around him, he seemed to be the calmest person on the field.

“Kind of like. ‘This is what I was supposed to do,’” Mora said. “That’s what I like in a player.”

Could it be that the problem, then, might be in the evaluations – that the NFL spends too much time trying to find fault?

Fisher even told a story that Titans team research showed that in the past 20 years, when three quarterbacks are selected in round one, only two had been successful.

“There’s always been one,” Fisher said, “that for whatever reason (did) not make it.”

Young will join USC’s Matt Leinart and Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler in the first round. Fisher thinks this year will be the exception – all three will succeed.

“You have to be careful when you are talking about Vince because there are people that are looking for things that are wrong,” Fisher said. “Everybody likes him. You get a chance to know him, he’s genuine and real and just a great college quarterback.”