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The Rose Bowl Shuffle

Stanford will play Arizona State on Saturday evening in the Pac-12 Championship game, and the winner will represent the conference in the 100th Rose Bowl in Pasadena on January 1st. Simple.

But which team will be standing on the shady side of the stadium that afternoon? Much more complicated. [Editor's Note: That's what I thought when I started writing. It actually turned out to be quite simple, but I'll let you read on to find out how I got there.]

Here's what we know. Ohio State and Michigan State will play in the Big Ten Championship game, also on Saturday. If Michigan State wins, the Spartans will travel west to play in the Granddaddy for the first time in twenty-six years. Simple.

But here's where things get complicated. [Editor's Note: Again, not really.] If the undefeated and #2 ranked Buckeyes win on Saturday, there are several different possibilities, and I'll do my best to lay them out in a way that makes sense. [Editor's Note: There is really only one realistic possibility.]  Please stick with me, though. I'll wrap things up in the end in a way that makes sense. Hopefully. [Editor's Note: It makes perfect sense. You'll see.]

BCS Breakdown, Week 3

It wasn't until I was deep into my thirties that I finally understood what was meant by the phrase "not seeing the forest for the trees." After all, if you're looking at the trees, how can you not see the forest? 

This phenomenon manifests itself in sports constantly. When your focus lies solely on your own team, you tend to see the flaws without realizing that the strengths far outweigh what is lacking. Even more importantly, you don't compare, say, your team's offensive line to other offensive lines around the country, but instead you measure it against an unattainable ideal that resides only in your head. 

Stanford fans are guilty of this. There has been a fair amount of angst spreading through the ranks of Nerd Nation over the past few weeks, with concerns ranging from the quarterback to the coaching staff to the tight ends to the mounting injuries on the defensive side of the ball. The reality, of course, is that this Stanford team is quite good. According to this week's BCS rankings, they are the fifth-best team in the nation and one of probably only seven teams that can realistically dream of a national championship.

Is Stanford Rose Bowl Bound?

Here's the funny thing about this year's Stanford Cardinal. As frustrating as they've been, things just might turn out alright. Stanford could end up in the Rose Bowl on January 1st. Here's how...

First of all, there's the obvious way. With a 4-1 record and games remaining against the two teams ahead of them, the Cardinal is in the driver's seat. All they have to do is win out, including a win in the Pac-12 Championship game, and they'll be smelling roses.

But that murmur you hear is the voice of reality explaining that the Oregon Ducks are simply too good. That's fine, though, because it fits right along with Plan B.

In this plan the Ducks run the table and finish undefeated at 12-0, which is nice. At the conclusion of the regular season they'd advance to the Pac-12 Championship game, where they'd run roughshod over USC or whichever lamb is sent up from the Pac-12 South to Eugene for the slaughter.

What the New Playoff System Means for Stanford Football

The new college football playoff system approved this week by a panel of university presidents has been greeted with almost universal approval from coaches, writers, and fans. Even those who point out the flaws have usually done so while acknowledging that this new system promises to be much better than the BCS system we've had to deal with for so long. Or is it?

First of all, teams won't have to run through anything close to the six-round gauntlet necessary to win a basketball championship, but that would never make sense. (Most expanded playoff models have called for an eight-team field.) This new system, which will begin in two years with the 2014 season, will keep the bowl system intact (money talks!) and slot the four best teams into two semi-final games on December 31st or January 1st, the sites of which will rotate amongst six different bowl games which are yet to be completely determined. The championship game will be up for bid on a year-by-year basis, just as the Super Bowl is.

It isn't yet clear how these top teams will be identified, but I think it's safe to assume that the Pac-12 champion will likely be one of the four. So here's the question -- what will the Stanford Cardinal look like in 2014?

Oklahoma State 41, Stanford 38 (OT)

If you woke up on Tuesday morning hoping to find it had all been a dream, hoping to learn that the football had managed to stay inside of the left upright on the field goal attempt at the end of regulation, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The kicker who had been so accurate all season wasn't able to make that field goal. The defense that had been so stout all season -- and effective on Monday night -- wasn't able to get Oklahoma State off the field when they had to. The offense, easily one of the best in the nation, couldn't get the ball in the end zone for the touchdown that would've assured victory.

It wasn't a dream. What you saw really happened.

But if you can put those final fifteen minutes out of your head for just a moment, you have to realize that this was a great, great game played by a wonderful team led by the best quarterback you'll ever see.

Blogging With the Enemy: Oklahoma State Cowboys

One of the hidden benefits of watching your team in a bowl game is that you get to see them match up against a team that doesn't normally appear on your schedule and typically comes from a conference far, far away. (Fans of most schools are used to this, but all this postseason play and college football dominance is still quite new to Cardinal fans.)

Stanford heads to next week's Fiesta Bowl to take on the #3 Oklahoma State Cowboys, a team believed by many -- including me -- to be more deserving of a spot in the national championship game than the Alabama Cumbersome Tide. 

BCS Breakdown, Week 6

Remember last week when Stanford's BCS dreams came crashing down and the outlook was bleak and dreary? Remember when I tried to assure you that everything would be okay and the Cardinal would still manage to secure a BCS bid? Better than that, remember when I laid out that pie-in-the-sky scenario that could actually end with the Cardinal still playing for the national championship?

After one of the craziest weekends in the history of the BCS, Stanford is suddenly firmly entrenched amongst a sea of teams that aren't good enough to separate from the pack. They are one of six one-loss teams looking up at LSU, the only undefeated team that matters. (Sorry, Houston.)

There are lots of reasons why the BCS system should be wished into the cornfield, and this weekend is Exhibit A. The voters clearly have no idea what they're doing. Oregon lost to a surging USC team that's clearly developed into one of the top seven or eight teams in the country, and they're pushed back six spots to number ten. Stanford's loss last week to Oregon, then seen as the team most deserving of a title shot, cost them five spots in the BCS. But the voters love Oklahoma State, so OSU's loss to an anemic Iowa State team only pushed them down two rungs to number four, two spots ahead of Stanford. Stanford also trails Virginia Tech, which is... how you say? A travesty.

Anyway, here's our team-by-team look at the weekly standings. As always, your comments are more than welcome.

Bowling for Dollars

Inspired by a comment dropped by SM in the most recent BCS Breakdown post, I thought I'd take a look at all the BCS bowl possibilities for the Mighty Card, no matter how remote.

I've made up some percentages to help you think about how likely each scenario is, and in order to make the math a bit easier, I'm assuming that Stanford has a 100% chance of beating Cal and Notre Dame over the last two weeks. This is obviously crazy, but the whole premise of this article is crazy, so just play along.

BCS Breakdown, Week 5

I know what you're thinking. It's only been a day or so since Saturday night's loss, and you're not ready to think about the future. You'd prefer that I just leave you alone to sit on the couch in your pajamas working through weeks of unwatched material on your DVR.

Here's the truth of it. All is not lost. The Stanford Cardinal is 9-1, and regardless of what happened against Oregon, this team is still one of the best in the country. The BCS Championship Game is no longer a possibility, but Andrew Luck and the Cardinal will almost certainly be selected by one of the other BCS bowl games as an at-large team.

Let's take a look at the other teams in the mix, as well as the five BCS bowl games, to see how this will happen. As always, any scenario discussed here assumes that Stanford wins its final two games against Cal and Notre Dame.

BCS Breakdown, Week 3

There was a moment on Saturday night -- or, more accurately, several moments -- when it seemed like this whole BCS series I've been running would be completely irrelevant come Sunday morning.

But we know what happened this past weekend in the Coliseum, and we know that the Mighty Card is still undefeated and possibly headed towards a BCS bowl of some type, perhaps even the BCS championship game. With only four games remaining on the schedule, plus a possible Pac-12 Championship game match-up against either Arizona State or, believe it or not, UCLA, bowl season is getting closer and closer all the time.

Aside from the Cardinal victory, the best thing that happened over the weekend was that Clemson lost and Boise State dipped behind Stanford in the polls, so the list of teams concerning the Cardinal has gotten shorter. (Next week, it will be shorter still.) Take a look...