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.
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