Go Mighty Card

Monday Morning Links

If you're not quite ready to be productive yet, why not spend some time perusing these Stanford Football links, presented in no particular order.  And don't think for a second that you're wasting time.  After all, I've done all the leg work for you.  All you have to do click, furrow your brow, and pretend like you're analyzing a spread sheet.  You're welcome.

It's been clear for a while now that the New York Times loves the Mighty Card.  Here's their latest love letter, a piece on Owen Marecic.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News grades the Cardinal's performance at Arizona State and looks ahead to Big Game.

Sophomore linebacker Shayne Skov has been turning heads, and not just because of his sweet mohawk.  He just might be the most talented player on the Cardinal defense.  Here's a nice profile from the San Jose Mercury News.

Scott Allen of Rule of Tree wrote a great piece last week in response to all the criticism Stanford fans have been getting for leaving empty seats at the stadium.  The bottom line?  There just aren't a lot of fans out there.

Albert Breer of NFL.com stuns the football world by discovering that Jim Harbaugh is a hot coaching candidate, even in the NFL.  

Still smarting from their narrow defeat at the hands of the Oregon Ducks, the folks at California Golden Blogs point out that there seems to be a double standard with regards to illegal hits in college football.  Offensive players who take cheap shots at defenders often do so with impunity.

Finally, the best for last.  ESPN.com's Ted Miller has updated his bowl projections for the Pac-10, and he still thinks Stanford will find a way to make it to the Rose Bowl.  Have we mentioned that we love Ted Miller?

I Have Seen the New Pac-12, and I Like It

Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott laid out the plans for the new Pac-12 during a press conference on Thursday afternoon, and after watching it I have to say that things look a lot better for Stanford than I had hoped.  There had been lots of hand wringing in Northern and Southern California during the past few weeks that the traditional intrastate rivalries would be severed as the conference was split into two divisions.  Earlier this week I wrote about my hope that Stanford would be able to negotiate an assurance that they would play one of the Los Angeles schools each year, but the scheduling plan announced is even better than that.

As expected, the Pac-10 North will be comprised of the four Northwest schools plus Stanford and Cal, and the Pac-10 South will have the Los Angeles schools, the Arizona schools, plus newcomers Utah and Colorado.  Looking at things from Stanford's point of view, the Cardinal will play the other five teams in the North, plus four of the six teams in the South.  The good news, though, is that both Bay Area teams will play both L.A. teams each year.  As he discussed this aspect of the schedule, Commissioner Scott noted that USC has actually played Cal and Stanford more times than it's played UCLA, and he made it clear that he saw these rivalries as integral to the history and identity of the conference.  In order to respect this history, the decision makers unanimously agreed to extend the rivalries between the California schools.

In the long run, this couldn't have worked out better for Stanford.  The Cardinal will still make yearly trips to the fertile recruiting ground of Southern California, but they won't have to compete against either UCLA or USC in the conference standings.

The sole purpose of the divisional split, of course, is the creation of a conference championship game.  Beginning in December of 2011, the championship game will be played in the stadium of the team with the best overall conference record.  The SEC holds its championship game in a neutral site, but there are two reasons this wouldn't work for the Pac-12.  In a sprawling conference the size of the Pac-12, it would be difficult to expect Washington fans, for example, to travel more than a thousand miles on a week's notice.  Also, as difficult as it may be to believe, there are exactly three football-only neutral sites within the Pac-12 region: Qwest Field in Seattle, Invesco Field in Denver, and Glendale Stadium outside of Phoenix.  All three are on distant outposts of the Pac-12, and wouldn't make sense.

So now it's finally all clear.  The Mighty Card will be in Los Angeles to play the Trojans in the fall, and then host the inaugural Pac-12 Championship game in December.  Make your travel plans now!

Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

The Stanford Cardinal have been lining up on the grid iron against the Cal Bears since 1898, but they've been playing against USC and UCLA almost as long.  Stanford and USC played each other for the first time in 1905, and the series hasn't missed a year since 1924.  The UCLA series carries just as much history, kicking off in 1925, skipping '26 and '27, and continuing unbroken until this current season.  (For the sticklers out there, both series were suspended during World War II.)  

Traditions like this are the lifeblood of college football, but recently the Pac-12's athletic directors voted to go in another direction, chasing the dollars offered by a conference championship game.  Ever since Colorado and Utah were accepted into the conference, it had been assumed that the league would be divided into two divisions in order to facilitate a December championship game to match the marquee games put on by the SEC, ACC, and Big-12, but it was never clear how the teams would be sorted.

One popular idea was the "zipper" method, in which the existing conference would essentially be split down its spine into Western and Eastern divisions.  The Western Division would have contained Washington, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State, and Utah, and the Eastern would have Washington State, Oregon, Cal, USC, Arizona, and Colorado.  Under this plan Stanford would play the other five teams in its division each year, along with natural rival Cal, and three of the remaining five teams in the Eastern division, presumably on a rotating basis.