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Is This Rock Bottom?

The First Rock Bottom

We know the idea of "rock bottom." It is the place from which nothing can get worse, and, ideally, the beginning of a return to normalcy. Perhaps a gambler spends away his child's college fund, or a family going through difficult times begins sleeping in their car.

Personal tragedies like those examples and the status of a football program are two very different subjects, but there is one thing that both have in common. We never really know where rock bottom is until we've gained enough perspective to look back from a higher perch. The gambler, for example, no doubt had several dark moments earlier on that he might've hoped were his bottom, and so it is with Stanford football.

As the Cardinal closed out the 2021 season with seven straight defeats, the 52-7 loss to Utah seemed like rock bottom, but it could also be argued that the 41-11 loss to Cal two games later was even worse. Surely the program could sink no lower. As we sat there licking our wounds after Big Game and then sat there still as the team lost to Notre Dame a week later, it was difficult to imagine things getting any worse.

But then this year began and things did just that. The 1-3 start with consecutive losses to USC, Washington, and Oregon was bad, but the devastating and wholly unexpected loss to Oregon State made things even worse. It certainly felt like the bottomest rock bottom we'd seen, and when the Cardinal rebounded with a rejuvenating upset victory over Notre Dame in South Bend and then another (less impressive) win over Arizona State it felt like things were better. We looked back at those four straight losses and knew the worst was behind us. Right?

Stanford 16, Notre Dame 14

Nothing in the world would've been easier than sleep walking through a week of practice, boarding a plane on Thursday for a long trip to South Bend, slogging through a three-hour beating at the hands of the Fighting Irish, and then crawling back to California to finish one of the most disappointing seasons in Stanford history. No one would've been surprised, and I'm not just talking about the fans. I don't think anyone connected with the Stanford program, inside or outside of the locker room, would've been surprised if that had been the path taken by the Cardinal. 

The loss would have been expected, the season would have become a death march, and David Shaw's detractors would've been waiting on the tarmac with torches and pitchforks.

Oregon 45, Stanford 27

It's difficult to know where to begin, so we'll start at the beginning. Not the beginning of this game, but the beginning of this blog. I started writing in this space almost exactly twelve years ago. Here's the first paragraph of my first post from September 26, 2012, a recap of a game between Stanford and Notre Dame.

If you're reading this, you know a few things about Stanford Football.  First, the Cardinal went to South Bend on Saturday afternoon and came away with a victory that was surprising only in the level of dominance.  They beat the Irish soundly on both sides of the ball, and the game really wasn't as close as the score would indicate.

I couldn't have known what was waiting for Stanford football in the years to come. The trip to the Orange Bowl later that season seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the dominant win over Virginia Tech seemed like a fairy tale. I watched that game from a hotel room in Orlando; I had briefly entertained the idea of renting a car and leaving a family vacation for 24 hours to go to the game because I couldn't imagine that I've ever again get the chance to see the Cardinal in a BCS bowl game.

After sitting in the stands for three Rose Bowls in four years, the fantasy threatened to wear off. I was still very aware of how far the program had come, but I never lost sight of the tenuous nature of Stanford's success. We are all just guests at the table, and even though I didn't think the dinner party would ever end, I always knew there was a chance that it might.

I knew that any number of variables could collapse and push the program back down among the masses, and I wondered how I would feel if that happened. Mostly, I wondered about this blog. Would people still be interested in reading about a program that was struggling? Would I still have the motivation to write about them? I wondered.

USC 41, Stanford 28

Two weeks ago we were invited to a family function that coincided with the kickoff of Saturday evening's game between Stanford and USC. It was something that couldn't be missed, so I set the DVR, put my phone on airplane mode, and hoped for the best. We were going to a UCLA house, so I figured there was a decent chance the game wouldn't be on, so there was a decent chance I wouldn't make a fool of myself by huddling in front of a screen while everyone else made eye contact and spoke to each other like normal human beings. I could hope.