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Blogging with the Enemy: California Golden Bears

It's been so long since the last time Stanford lost to Cal that some of the details, quite honestly, have blurred in my memory. I listened to the beginning of that game on a radio stream as I sat on the sidelines of my daughter's basketball practice, and I even had to apologize to some of the other parents when I started cheering for no reason (from their perspective) as Toby Gerhart opened the scoring with a 63-yard touchdown on Stanford's opening possession.

How long ago was this game? It wasn't televised in Southern California, so even though I was home for the closing moments of the game, I was still listening to the stream, standing nervously in front of my computer. The Cardinal trailed late, down 34-28 with 2:32 to play, but they were moving the ball on a drive that I was certain would clinch the Heisman Trophy for Gerhart. Andrew Luck dumped a pass to Gerhart in the left flat, as described by the KZSU Radio broadcast team, and Gerhart carried Cal defenders down the field, just as he had been carrying his Cardinal team all season long. With a 1st down at the Cal 13, the script was playing out just as I would've written it. Gerhart had 20 carries for 136 yards and four touchdowns, and I'm certain that everyone in the stadium, including both sidelines, knew his fifth was on the way. Scoring five touchdowns, all five of his team's touchdowns, in the final game of the season would've earned the cover of Sports Illustrated, gotten the attention of even the most jaded of East Coast Heisman voters, and clinched that elusive trophy. (It's worth noting that back then, just hearing "Stanford" and "Heisman" in the same sentence was fairly unbelievable; we hadn't yet lived through the disappointment of five runner-up finishes in nine years.)

The Heisman was there for the taking, and so was the Axe.

Stanford 17, California 14

Nine years ago the Bears crushed Stanford 37-16 to regain the Axe, then won a 34-28 heartbreaker the following year to cap Cal's most successful stretch in Big Game history. They won seven of eight years from 2002-2009, and things were looking up in Berkeley. 

Over the next four years the Bears gave scholarships to 86 players, many of them highly-touted, and there was reason to believe that their success might continue. But Saturday's 17-14 Stanford win was the Cardinal's eighth consecutive win in the series, and it meant that none of those Axe-less 86* ever tasted Big Game victory. None of the Axe-less 86* ever laid a hand on the Axe.

Blogging with the Enemy: California Golden Bears

What if there's a November in the not-too-distant future when the Stanford-Cal game comes up on the schedule and no one notices? What if the Stanford Axe Committee doesn't bother to take that piece of history out of the trophy case and instead watches from the stands with everyone else? What if the Cal football team stops pretending that they have a chance and simply comes to Palo Alto because the schedule says they have to?

 

Is this the direction where this rivalry is headed? The Cal Bears cheated their way to a win in 1982 with a play that doesn't deserve mention here, but they've paid the price since that tainted victory. In the 34 games since then, the Cardinal has enjoyed a 22-11-1, including two separate seven-game winning streaks.

Ignoring conference implications, when should the Big Game winning streak end?

— Go Mighty Card (@GoMightyCard) November 11, 2017

 

One of those streaks is active right now, a seven-year stretch that has seen Andrew Luck obliterate Sean Cattouse in 2010, Ty Montgomery score five touchdowns in 2013, and Christian McCaffrey roll up a school-record 389 all-purpose yards in 2015. None of the games has been close, not even the 31-28 win in 2011. This game has become nothing more than a showcase for the Cardinal's greatest stars, a victory lap for Stanford seniors who have never lost the Axe, and a recurring nightmare for one Cal class after another who arrived in Berkeley with hope only to leave four years later with ashes in their mouths.

 

Saturday's game will be more of the same. While Cal fans might've been hopeful in September when their team was 3-0 and Stanford was reeling after consecutive losses to USC and San Diego State, both teams have seen a regression to the mean. We know about Stanford's season, but let's take a quick look of what's been going on Berkeley. After that nice start, including an impressive road win over North Carolina and a victory over Ole Miss from the SEC, reality crashed down on the Bears with the arrival of the Pac-12 schedule and a 1-5 stretch to start conference play. Of course, that one win was significant. Their 37-3 thrashing of #8 Washington State resonated on the national landscape and changed the course of the Pac-12 North.

 

The good news for Bears is that the program certainly appears headed in the right direction; the bad news is that they aren't ready to compete with Stanford just yet. While it might've looked like this would the year that Stanford's seven-game winning streak ended, I don't see it that way. The Cardinal will ride another superlative performance by another great player, and this time it will be Bryce Love rushing for at least 180 yards. K.J. Costello's maturation will continue, the defense will play well, and the Cardinal will cruise to a 33-13 win. 1. Hoist the Axe; 2. Whose House? 3. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Believe it or not, though, there are people out there who think differently about this game. Kind of. For a look at the Cal Bears and the outlook from the other side of the Bay, I reached out to California Golden Blogs, and two experts were immediately dispatched to answer my questions. (You can also click over to their site to read my responses to their queries, as well as some answers from RuleOfTree.com.) Anyway, read on...

Blogging with the Enemy: California Golden Bears

When I think about Big Game, countless memories rush back from over the course of my thirty seasons watching Stanford football. There are the obvious ones, ranging from the John Hopkins field goal to clinch the miracle comeback in 1990 to Ty Montgomery's five-touchdown first half in 2013, but the game I've been thinking about the most is probably a loss. 

In 2009, the first year that Stanford was consistently competitive under third-year coach Jim Harbaugh, the Cardinal entered Big Game with a 7-3 record and thoughts of reclaiming the Axe. Andrew Luck was in his first season, and although he certainly showed flashes of brilliance and gave hints of what was to come, that year's team revolved around Toby Gerhart and his Hesiman-runner-up season. Gerhart had a typical game against Cal, rushing for 136 yards and four touchdowns, but Luck had probably the worst game of his Stanford career, finishing 10 of 30 for just 157 yards and an interception that ended any hopes of a Cardinal win. Trailing by six in the final minutes of the game, Luck engineered a drive that looked like it would end with Stanford players hoisting the Axe in triumph. He scrambled to pick up one key first down, then from midfield he checked down to his third or fourth receiver and found Gerhart in the flat for what should've been a five-yard gain. Instead, Gerhart ran through four different Cal defenders and rumbled -- I think Gerhart probably even rumbled from class to class that year -- for a 29-yard gain to the Cal 13.

Listening to the radio feed at the time, I was certain of three things -- Gerhart would eventually get the ball and carry it the rest of the way for the touchdown, Stanford would win the Axe, and Heisman voters around the country would have no choice but to cast their votes for the man who had scored five touchdowns in his rivalry game. (I was young and naïve back then.) But he wouldn't touch the ball again. Two plays after Gerhart's long catch and run, Luck dropped back and threw one of the worst interceptions I can remember him throwing, and the game was over. No touchdown, no Axe, no Heisman.

Stanford 35, Cal 22

It might not have been the game most anticipated, but it ended the way almost everyone expected, with Stanford players carrying the Axe off the field in celebration for the sixth year in a row. As David Shaw said afterwards, "There's no one in the program who's lost the Axe."

Blogging With the Enemy: California Golden Bears

I know the exact moment when I finally understood the true meaning of Big Game. In 1990, the fall of my senior year, Stanford and Cal played what anyone on the Cardinal side of the rivalry will tell you is still the greatest contest in the history of Big Game. What happened on the field that afternoon and evening has transcended football and become legend -- Glyn Milburn's school record 379 all-purpose yards, Ed McCaffrey's last minute touchdown, the failed two-point conversion which led to Cal's premature rushing of the field, the recovered on-side kick, and finally the John Hopkins field goal which won the game and triggered a more appropriate rushing of the field. (If you haven't watched that ending recently, go here now.) As great as all that was -- and it was really, really great -- none of that did it for me.

After running around the field like a crazy person for a while and eventually finding my way to the Axe, I was actually able to touch it. I still remember how the cold steel of the Axe felt against my outstretched fingertips, a thrill which stays with me twenty-five years later. But even that wasn't it.

As the chaos wound down, I returned to the stands to reconnect with my friends. The first person I found was Jack, and for some reason we decided it would be fun to celebrate the victory by climbing the poles used to hoist the net up behind the goalposts during field goal attempts. I ran to one, and Jack to the other; we'd race to the top. Ten feet up the poll I decided I could go a lot faster if I used the rope to help pull myself up, but the rope wasn't meant to hold my 180 pounds. It snapped immediately, and I plummeted downwards and landed flat on my back, fracturing the tip of my elbow and knocking the wind out of me. I couldn't breathe for thirty seconds or so, but it didn't really matter. We had the Axe. That was the moment.

The 117th Big Game: Stanford 38, California 17

The more things change, the more they remain the same. It was that moment when your fourteen-year-old younger brother gets tired of flexing his young muscles in front of the bedroom mirror and decides it's time to challenge you, time to end the wedgies and the charlie horses, time to take the last slice of pizza in the box for once and hold the remote control, time to walk through the house with pride instead of apprehension. He's had enough. He walks out into the front yard, and right in front of God, your girlfriend, and the rest of the neighborhood, he challenges you to a fight. He challenges the natural order of things. But of course, we know how it turns out.

And so it was on Saturday afternoon in Berkeley. Younger brother Cal had scrapped its way to a 5-5 record on the season and had designs on doing the unthinkable. They sought the Axe; they were denied.

Blogging With the Enemy: California Golden Bears

In a world of uncertainty and chaos, ebola and global warming, terrorist threats and the impending zombie apocalypse, it's nice to have a few things to count on -- a golden orange sun rising through the mist in the East and warming your cheeks with its first morning rays, the loving look of your child as you tuck her into bed at the end of that day, and, more than anything else, the peaceful security of sleeping with a sharp-bladed Axe under your pillow, tangible evidence of a job well done.

The 2015 Schedule

With no game to look forward to this Saturday, now seems like the perfect time to look at the Cardinal's 2015 schedule, released this week by the Pac-12. Far too many things will happen between now and next fall to predict outcomes of any of the games, but let's take a game-by-game trip through the schedule anyway, just for fun. Oh, and keep this in mind as we go -- the schedule sets up perfectly for a run to the playoffs.

2014 Schedule Breakdown and Predictions

Back by popular demand -- or, more accurately, by one person's demand -- is GMC's yearly schedule breakdown. Why wait for the games to be played when you can just read on? As usual, I'll give you my thoughts on each game along with the likelihood of a Cardinal victory, but just for fun I've also assigned a different 80s movie to each matchup. It promises to be entertaining...

August 30 vs. UC Davis
Movie: The Sure Thing
Quote: "I hope you appreciate the magnitude of your impending good fortune."

I don't know the real reason why UC Davis is on the schedule this year, but it might just be to remind Stanford fans how far the program has come. It was nine years ago that Davis somehow beat Stanford, 20-17, in a game that was surely brought up in the halls of the Stanford athletic department as some voices pushed to drop the football program down to Division II. In less than a decade, Stanford football has gone from being one of the worst teams in the country to one of the nation's elite. 

As devastating and shocking as that 2005 loss was, I can't imagine that anyone connected with the 2014 Cardinal is thinking about revenge. No one on the team was even out of middle school at that point, and this team has goals much larger than righting a nine-year-old wrong. This game isn't about revenge, it's about finishing without any major injuries.

I can't imagine that we'll see much from the starters after half time, but while they're in there it'll be interesting to see how the offensive line plays and what the running back rotation looks like. In the second half we should get a look at some of the younger players, including Christian McCaffrey, and the second- and third-string quarterbacks. It'll be fun.

Expected Outcome: This is a sure thing. 100% chance of Stanford victory.