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Post Game Interviews

Courtesy of the Cardinal Channel, we present eight minutes of on-field player interviews following Saturday's victory. Proof that it really happened. Enjoy...

Stanford 56, USC 48 (3OT)

Matt Barkley handed the ball off to running back Curtis McNeal at the Stanford thirty-yard line with just over ten and half minutes to play in the third quarter. McNeal took off through a gaping hole on the left side of the line and sprinted untouched to the corner of the end zone to give USC a commanding 20-10 lead over the Cardinal.

Given the amount of time left in the game and the typical efficiency of the Stanford offense, the ten-point lead was far from insurmountable, but with the way the game was going, I was concerned. Only moments earlier the Trojans had capped off their opening drive of the second half with a sixty-one yard McNeal touchdown, giving them their first lead of the game and Stanford's first deficit of the season. The Cardinal offense had responded to that taste of adversity with a three-and-out, and now Andrew Luck took the field amidst a sea of uncertainty.

Could the Cardinal respond in the face of adversity? Would the team's national championship aspirations evaporate in the heat of the Coliseum? Would Luck's season end without a Heisman Trophy? Most importantly, was the 2011 Stanford Cardinal just a good football team, or a great football team?

Game Preview: Stanford at USC

I had a dream about this game two nights ago. The Cardinal had just scored late in the game to pull within a touchdown of victory, but Coach Shaw eschewed the onside kick, choosing instead to trust that his defense could get the ball back for him.

Matt Barkley and the Trojans needed only one first down to essentially ice the game, but when they found themselves stuck in a third and long, they were forced to pass. Barkley dropped back and was almost immediately hammered by Chase Thomas from the blind side. The ball popped up out of his hands, and Matt Masafilo plucked it out of the air like low-hanging fruit. Masafilo easily rumbled twenty yards into the end zone, and the Cardinal came away with the victory.

Even in my sleep, I was fired up.

BCS Breakdown, Week 2

If we learned one thing last weekend it's this -- it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to worry about BCS-related injustices when the season is barely half over. Just when it looked like an undefeated Stanford team might end up on the outside looking in at the BCS Championship game, two huge upsets made the road to New Orleans a bit more reasonable for the Mighty Card.

The first domino fell as the crowd was filing out of Stanford Stadium on Saturday night. The stadium announcer had been keeping fans apprised of score of the Wisconsin-Michigan State game, and the suddenly knowledgable Stanford crowd cheered dutifully each time as the Spartans held a lead throughout the second half.

As we made our way down the steps and into the night after Stanford's 65-21 drubbing of the Huskies, a cheer went up from those surrounding television screens in the tailgating area, and moments later a muffled announcement from the stadium confirmed Wisconsin's loss. An hour or so later Texas Tech sealed its upset win over Oklahoma, and two previously undefeated teams were suddenly in the Cardinal's rear view mirror. 

What havoc might the next few weeks bring? Let's take a look...

Stanford 65, Washington 21

If you want to know why it's taken so long get this recap up, it's because it's taken me this long to wrap my head around what happened on Saturday night. This was Reunion Weekend at Stanford, and I spent much of Friday and Saturday wandering around a campus that was strange and familiar all at the same time. There were dozens of buildings that hadn't been there during my time, but my freshman dorm (Rinconada, if you must know) hadn't changed a bit. My old friends from the Class of '91 had grey and thinning hair, but they were still the same people I'd bonded with two decades earlier.

The Stanford football team presented a similar paradox. The helmets and jerseys looked the same, but the results? Slightly different.

Blogging With the Enemy: Washington Huskies

So far the Stanford Cardinal have simply done what's been expected. These first six games were all seen as nearly certain victories when the schedule was released, so I suppose you could say that the Cardinal has held serve.

As long as we're being honest, I'll admit that I saw this seventh game against the Washington Huskies as a sure thing as well. If you consider that the Huskies were crushed by the Cardinal last season, 41-0, and then lost quarterback Jake Locker to the NFL, this game looked like a walk.

It doesn't look that way anymore. Keith Price has replaced Locker, and I'm guessing there isn't a single Husky fan would have it any other way. You might not have heard of him, but you'll definitely remember him after Saturday night. Price ranks second in the conference to Andrew Luck in quarterback rating, and his 21 touchdowns are tops, three better than Luck. When you add running back Chris Polk, who's second in the conference in rushing, Washington has a fairly formidable offense. Will that be enough for the #25 Huskies to score the upset? I posed that question and several others to two people who know an awful lot about UW football. First up is Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, and he's followed by John Berkowitz of UW Dawg Pound. (If you check the Dawg Pound, you should be able to find my answers to John's questions about the Cardinal.) Anyway, there's lots of great stuff from both gentlemen, so pull up a chair...

Semester Report Card: The Offense

Last week's win clinched a bowl game, so we know the Cardinal will play at least thirteen games this season. The Pac-12 Championship game is also still a strong possibility, but with six games down I still consider this the midway point of the season. So rather than issuing grades based solely on last Saturday's performance, this week I'll be grading each unit on how they've done over the first half of the season. If you disagree with any of my grades, please let me know. Anyway, here we go...

BCS Breakdown, Week 1

 

I think we're probably all in agreement here that the Bowl Championship Series is nothing but a convoluted scam perpetrated on the American public under the pretense that it is the only practical way to fairly determine the best college football team in America. That's an absolute lie. But we're not here to debate that.

The BCS is the reality that aspiring championship teams must deal with, so we might as well put our concerns aside and figure out how this system affects the current edition of the Stanford Cardinal.

Stanford 44, Washington State 14

A friend of mine texted me during the opening moments of the second half on Saturday night, sending me a one-word message that seems ridiculous now.

"Nervous?"

Blogging With the Enemy: Washington State Cougars

When I previewed Washington State back in July, I said that even though the past three years had been difficult, this season promised to be different. I felt like they would turn at least some of last year's close losses into wins, and that quarterback Jeff Tuel would mature into one of the conference's top quarterbacks.

Two games into conference play the Cougs are 1-1. They squeaked by Colorado and lost a heartbreaker at UCLA, so it's probably too early to say whether I'm right or wrong. When Tuel went down with a broken collarbone in Week 1, even the most loyal Cougar fans assumed the season was about to burn to the ground, but Marshall Lobbestael has done more than anyone could've expected. He's third in the conference in passer rating, and he's thrown more touchdowns than Andrew Luck. Though Tuel has been cleared to play this week, as of Friday morning Coach Paul Wulff hadn't decided if he'd see the field. I bet he sticks with Lobbestael. 

Anyway, I don't really know what I'm talking about here, so I've turned to Lucas Nurmi from the WSU Football Blog to get an expert opinion. (Lucas is making his third appearance here at GoMightyCard, putting him just a few guest spots behind John Goodman and Tom Hanks.) Also, you check out my answers to his questions over at his place. I'll get out of the way now.