Idiots Write About Sports

So Cal wins its fourth straight Big Game, likely ends Stanford’s season without a bowl, completes the University of California football hat trick versus Stanford this year (UC Davis, UCLA, and Cal)… what could be better?

It was a beautiful day for a football game. Temperatures were probably in the low ’80s before gametime. Phil and I drove down and met Kenny in the parking lot, hung out for a couple of hours and did some proper tailgating — pretty much impossible to do at Cal, so it was fun to get the opportunity. As I expected, Phil and Kenny were able to speak the language of the A’s, which was a nice bonus (even for a Giants fan like me).

So this was the last trip to Stanford Stadium as we know it. I have to say that I won’t miss the dump, not one bit. Not the prison-like bathrooms with the troughs on the outside, so that you can face out and actually make eye contact with passersby while you’re urinating. Not the vertiginous staircases that take you all the way up to almost the very top of the stadium, followed by a plunge back down into hell if you’re sitting in a low-numbered row. Not the awful sight lines caused by the track that stands between you and the playing surface.

No, I won’t miss a bit of it. I’m really looking forward to coming back in two years and seeing the new stadium. I imagine that it will be a really different experience. Probably better. Certainly can’t be worse!

When we got inside, we met up with Marty and, from our perch in Row 72, took in the game.

The first half was, to quote Kenny, a bit like an SEC match-up. 6-3 Cal at the half, with some impressive play by Cal’s defense and general dithering by the offense with the one exception of Levy’s 56-yard bomb to DeSean Jackson.

At halftime we made our way through the insanely busy tunnels of Stanford Stadium — add that to the list of things I won’t miss — and caught up with Ken Crawford and Michael Cruz. We made our way back up to the tunnel and huddled to the side of the corridor, chatting until the second half begun. We all shared some opinions about the first half, mused about bowl possibilities, and tried to figure out what the deal is with that Seth character we’ve all spent time with this year. (No, we didn’t figure him out.)

On our way back to the seats, we were riding in the wake of a crazed fan — about 10 feet up ahead of us was an older gentleman who was shirtless, with half his body painted blue and the other half gold. By halftime the paint was seriously flaking, with the unintended effect being that he looked like someone who had escaped from a secret government torture center located in the basement of the East Palo Alto Home Depot.

The good thing was, people tended to get out of his way as he came through. Because he looked insane? Because they were afraid his paint would rub or flake off on them? Whatever the reason, the waters parted as he passed by, and we followed in his wake.

We only missed the first couple minutes of the second half. The Cal defense just destroyed poor Trent Edwards, and replacement T.C. Ostrander also got punished. This entire year, I haven’t seen remotely the defensive penetration that Cal had on Saturday. They hounded the QB all day, chasing him out of the pocket, hurrying him, and sacking him with abandon.

However, the defensive backs still seem to be content to play way off of the receivers, which leads to a lot of ridiculously easy completions for the opposition. It happened plenty in the Big Game, especially when Edwards was flushed out of the pocket, almost sacked, but then found a wide-open guy (with three defenders around him, but not on him) for a first down. That happened at least four times, and it was infuriating. Marty and I joked that Cal’s big defensive plan was to wait for the overthrow. (As it turned out, that was a pretty good plan.)

In the end, what happened was exactly what I told Phil would happen earlier this week. (He’ll back me up on this.) I really didn’t understand why everyone was reporting that Stanford had all the momentum and that the Cardinal were likely to win. Well, to be honest, I do understand why: stupidity. People looked at Cal’s 5-0 start (against easy teams) and 1-4 finish (against three top-15 teams) and assumed that Cal had gone in the tank.

But while I do agree that Joe Ayoob’s confidence did go in the tank the past five weeks, I don’t believe the team did. The mirage of Cal’s late-season collapse was created by the tough schedule — and even then, the Bears almost beat one-loss UCLA and one-loss Oregon! Cal’s running game has been tough. Their defense has been generally pretty good. In contrast, Stanford’s team looked to me like a paper tiger, a team with far more in common to the Washingtons and Arizonas of the world than the Oregons and USCs.

“I am not a predictor of football games,” I told Phil ‘round about Tuesday. “But there is no way that Cal is going to lose this game. No… way.” It’s good to be right, but I really feel that anyone who had really analyzed these two teams’ entire seasons would’ve come to the same conclusion.

A few more notes:

Steve Levy’s a great story. His Cal football experience has generally been a disappointment. He was a star QB in New Jersey, but he’s been a scrub at Cal. Still, he stuck with the team, and was finally rewarded. And not only did he truly add his name to the lore of th Big Game, he showed more promise than I gave him credit for. His arm doesn’t seem to be half bad, he’s pretty cool under pressure (the one stupid interception — on a third-and-long when Cal was clearly in four-down territory — notwithstanding), he can actually run the offense without confusion, and apparently he’s got some strong leadership qualities.

I have no idea if this means that Steve Levy has a shot at playing QB for Cal next year, but if he plays well in the bowl game, I wouldn’t bet against him.

The guys sitting behind us were complaining about Marshawn Lynch the entire game, and it really pissed me off. They kept complaining that he was hesitant, bouncing around rather than just plowing into the pile. Guys, have you seen this guy run? When you hand it off to Lynch on 1st and 10, the intent is not to have him gain three yards and stir up a cloud of dust. At any time he can break off long runs, and that’s because of his ability to move, to wait for a hole to open up, to kick it outside, or to reverse field. Yes, sometimes Lynch will lose yardage in those situations. But he’s a really, really good running back, and if you let him do his thing, you’ll end up ahead more often than not.

The moment that really killed me is when the guys were complaining about him after a play that I watched through my camera’s viewfinder. (It’s a Canon Digital Rebel with a big zoom lens, by the way.) The way the play unfolded was, Lynch got the ball, he bounced for a moment, the offensive line tore a hole in Stanford’s line, and then Lynch plowed through it for an 8-yard gain. Behind me, the geniuses were complaining about Lynch not just running straight — on a play that gained eight yards, and one that would have flopped had he not waited for the hole to open!

At that point Marty and I both turned around and said something to them, but from everything I had already picked up in their conversations, they seemed to be incredibly casual Cal fans, the type who show up to the Big Game if someone’s got tickets or if a friend’s in town, but not people who actually go to the games regularly or even pay close attention to the newspapers. Dumb.

So, a final farewell to Stanford Stadium as we know it. For this first time that I can ever remember, Cal fans clearly outnumbered Stanford fans at this game. And we were so much louder, too. I guess that loss to UC Davis really derailed the Walt Harris bandwagon, huh? Not even Stanford’s late surge seemed to gain them much support. Meanwhile, Cal fans turned out in droves for a team that had lost four out of five. Bad times at the Farm, and pretty sad to see. Even the idiotic Stanford Band is just boring these days. Time was, they were innovative in their way of uncovering new ways to embarrass their alumni. (Guess all the innovation these days is in video making instead.)

Up next: a bowl somewhere. Las Vegas? Phoenix? San Francisco? Only time — and the results of the ASU-Arizona and USC-UCLA games — will tell. Have a happy Thanksgiving week, everyone.

I don't think ANYONE is going to miss Stanford stadium. Well... maybe with one exception: the new seating capacity. At 50K, are the days of "season tickets always come with Big Game tickets" over? Although it might have worked this year with the very small number of Stanford season ticket holders, I don't see a day where Stanford has 30K free seats (or 40K this year) for Cal season ticket holders. I wonder how it'll work in the future? Lottery? Number of years with season tickets?

It was great to meet you guys at the game. I won't be going to the Insight bowl, but may consider a trip to the Las Vegas or Sun. Are any of you guys considering going? To which ones?

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