College football scheduling can be a tricky thing, mainly because you can never get it right. We love to excoriate schools like Alabama and Oregon for stacking their schedules with Directional State and Hostess U, but we've also seen firsthand what happens when you agree to play a Big Ten or ACC school on the other side of the country and end up with nothing more than an early morning kickoff, an upset loss, and a long flight home.
In general, though, Stanford strikes a pretty good balance. Notre Dame will always be on the non-conference schedule, and though they might no longer be a consistent national power, they're at least a national name. The midrange team last year and this was San Diego State, but that role's been played in the past by teams like Central Florida, Army, and Duke.
All of which brings us to UC-Davis. While I'd prefer that Stanford look to rekindle the series with San Jose State, it doesn't necessarily bother me that the Cardinal dipped down to play a lower division team. There is always value in playing a game, even if the outcome of the game is predetermined.
But what if things don't go as planned? Early in the game -- and it was early, the 11:00am kickoff was the earliest starting time in school history -- there were danger signs everywhere, and every Stanford fan over the age of 30 surely spent much of the first quarter trying desperately not to think about the Cardinal's stunning loss to the Aggies back in 2005. It couldn't happen again? Could it?