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The 123rd Big Game: Stanford 24, California 23

It's impossible to know how last year's loss affected this 123rd and most unusual edition of Big Game. Probably not at all for the players on the field. Stanford players were likely a bit more motivated to win back the Axe, Cal players were likely a bit more confident having seen the Stanford Axe for the first time in their lives, but for those making the tackles and the blocks, this was still a football game.

For the rest of us? Last year most certainly mattered. The last time I looked forward to a Big Game the way I did this one was in 2010, not coincidentally also after a Stanford loss the previous year, and that 48-14 blowout was all the sweeter because the Axe was repossessed.

That's the way Big Game is -- it's just football between the sidelines, but for everyone on the other side of the chalk, it's so much more. The mistakes are massive, the breaks are poetic, and the ultimate victory? If it comes, it will likely mean more than any win all season.

Blogging with the Enemy: California Golden Bears

Of all the things that were lost in 2019, of all the streaks that went by the wayside, the most painful and most tangible loss was the Axe. I will admit to taking it for granted. Cal had last beaten Stanford in 2009, in a game that was given away in the final moments, but since then the Cardinal had beaten the Bears in every way imaginable. They built a nine-game winning streak during a time when Stanford football was at its zenith and Cal football was wandering the depths of the Pac-12. There was no rational reason to believe the streak would last forever -- though I once predicted it would stretch to seventeen years -- but it certainly felt like it would.

The 122nd Big Game:Cal 24, Stanford 20

A few years ago, in one of my favorite Big Game recaps, I half-jokingly predicted that Stanford's winning streak over Cal would extend to seventeen games. The only reason to suspect otherwise back in 2016 was the knowledge that things even out over time, but from a football point of view, it made sense. Stanford vs. Cal was beginning to look like Texas vs. Rice, and lots of Stanford fans were becoming bored with the rivalry.

And so Saturday's game proved a couple of things. One, Cal actually can beat Stanford, and two, the rivalry is certainly not boring.

An Oral History of Big Game

Stanford may have a decided edge in the all-time football series with the Cal Bears, but Big Game is not just about numbers. The Stanford Axe has been on display in the Arrillaga Sports Center for the past ten years, but Big Game is not just about a trophy. On Saturday afternoon the Cardinal and the Bears will take the field at Stanford Stadium with serious bowl implications on the line for both teams, but it turns out that Big Game is not even just about football.

Big Game is about memories. While Stanford's recent run of dominance in the series has sometimes made the annual game against Cal feel more Medium than Big, with some fans pointing towards USC or Notre Dame or even Oregon as the program's actual rival, Big Game carries a resonance and a history that dwarfs any other game on Stanford's schedule. As sports fans we've been trained to latch onto the numbers, as if they tell the story. When we look into the record books we note that Stanford has prevailed nine years in a row, bringing the all-time Cardinal advantage to 59-43-10 (or 60-42-10, if we're being honest).

But there's so much more to the history of the game than statistics. Big Game endures because of the people involved and the memories they pass down from one generation to the next, stories told in dorm rooms and reunions and tailgates, stories from the field, the locker room, the press box, and the stands. Sometimes, in fact, the stories are so good that they transcend the games and become talking points for years to come. The individual games might sometimes be boring, but the stories never are.

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.