BCS #4

Deja Vu - last year we ended the regular season in the BCS at #4, which gave us a guaranteed BCS bowl (which brought on all the talk about none of the bowls wanting us and one of us, the Orange Bowl, being forced to take us). Here we are again - moved up to #4 with the win over Notre Dame.

Most of the pundits say we should stay there, even with our week off as other teams play in their conference championships. Most of it has to do with strength of schedule. We *could* potentially move up to #3 if Oklahoma St gets crushed by Oklahoma this weekend.

Regular Season Summary

Here's the entire season's schedule with results. Ended up 11-1 and 8-1 in conference. Amazing 2 years: 22-2.

Can't help but keep thinking what could have been. It all came down to that game against Oregon. If we could have won that - with what has now happened throughout the rest of the top 5 teams, all but LSU losing at least one game - we could have been playing for the National Championship.

Oh well - most are predicting Fiesta Bowl for The Cardinal. Would be a pretty sweet 2 year run of BCS bowl games.

Notre Dame 14 - Stanford 28

Huge game on a big stage. ABC Prime Time coverage of our last game of the season. It was senior night - each senior got called out individually with a video montage of their highlights. Awesome.

What looked like a fumble on the opening kickoff return turned out to be down before the ball came out. Whew. Rough start. Our run game wasn't super solid, but we stabilized and played pretty solid overall. Andrew Luck was a little inaccurate at the beginning, and had one of those panic moments again, just before getting sacked, threw it somewhat randomly to the fullback screening, but it got intercepted. Coby Fleener chased him down to prevent a pick-6 and we ended up holding them scoreless (missed FG).

The field was still pretty crappy, lots of slipping, but this time it was both teams, not just us (like it was for the Oregon game). (There are rumors that Stanford is thinking about installing artificial turf in the off season.)

Many (including Lee Corso on Gameday) talked about this game being the stage for Andrew Luck to win the Heisman. He did pretty well, 4 TDs, 1 INT, a few good running plays. There is a ground swell of support for Trent Richardson, the Alabama running back, who had a monstrous day today.

I didn't notice when it happened, but heard about it this morning: they let Chris Owusu (has taken huge hits this year and last, resulting in multiple concussions) suit up for warmups, and then even let him be in on the last play of the game - a Stanford kneel down. He was instructed by Shaw to NOT be involved in the play. If there is any kind of fumble and/or guys are trying to score - RUN OFF THE FIELD! Pretty cool that he got to be in there for his last game.. (article here)

Andrew Luck in the one-time-only uniforms.


Coby Fleener drags the defender into the end zone.

Stanford Band

Quick video from ESPN College Gameday about the band. It's different than the one they showed on the Gameday show.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7223398

BCS Shakeup - We're #6

Crazy weekend of upsets in the top 10 this weekend. Things have been shaken up in the BCS standings. This is apparently the first time ever that the top 3 teams in the BCS standings are all from the same conference (AND DIVISION).

#2 Oklahoma St lost their first of the season on Friday night when Iowa St beat them. OK St kicked a field goal at the end of regulation that went right OVER the field goal post, but was ruled no good. Iowa St. then won in OT.

#22 Baylor beat #5 Oklahoma. We were counting on OK to beat OK St to give them their first loss, but now it doesn't seem like that's required - they both have a loss.

#18 USC beat #4 Oregon, AT Oregon! We got crushed by them at our place, and then they go back and lose at home. Oregon missed a field goal to tie as time expired.

So that leaves only #1 LSU and #8 Houston still undefeated. Some say we now have a better chance at an at-large bid to one of the BCS bowls - current prediction is for Fiesta.

Gotta beat Notre Dame first. 3rd home game in a row to finish the season.

Cal 28 - Stanford 31

Whew - won that one, but it wasn't pretty. Raining the whole game, crowd was mostly out of their seats, tucked up under the concourse cover. Glad to have that one behind us.



Still seems like we're a bit "off". Luck hasn't been his normal "crisp" self, defensive secondary is not tackling, and running game has fallen off. Injuries are definitely catching up with us, and it definitely feels like we're limping into the finish line.

A couple good writeups:

STANFORD, Calif. -- Five things that we learned about the Cardinal in their 31-28 win over Cal in the 114th Big Game.

1. Ryan Hewitt is a monster: Well, we already knew this one, but the fullback/tight end/wideout/everything-hybrid was all over the field Saturday night for Stanford. He caught seven passes for 64 yards, including a 10-yard touchdown pass. He carried twice for 7 yards, both coming on third-and-1 scenarios on the same drive in the fourth quarter. He converted one for 3 yards and another for 4.
2. A win is a win: And this team needed one. It doesn’t matter how. Rarely are football games beauty contests. And this one was far from a looker. But coming off of the Oregon debacle, it was the kind of game the Cardinal needed. They trailed early, but didn’t panic. They were pressured late and didn’t crack. It was a nice reminder for the team that even when Stanford falls behind, it can still catch up -- a lesson it seemed to forget against the Ducks.
3. All hope is not gone: What a weird 24 hours in college football. A lot of crazy things have to happen -- like, say, four of the eight teams ranked ahead of the Cardinal all lose in one weekend. Oh wait, that happened. We’ll see what the BCS picture looks like later today when the new BCS standings are released. Remember, Stanford still has a major disadvantage in the computer rankings, so don’t get your hopes up too much. But it should be interesting to see how human voters make their peace with the USC-Oregon-Stanford triangle.
4. Andrew Luck rebounds nicely: Either he was amped up for this game or he miscalculated his receivers’ speed because of the rain. Early on he was over-throwing everything. But he settled down and turned in a nice performance. Not over-the-top great. Not horrific. The pick wasn’t his fault (which you can say about five of them this season) and there was one dropped touchdown. Not on him. It was a good, steady performance while some other Heisman hopefuls wilted. No one seems to be able to run away with it. But if Luck can have another steady performance next week, the Trophy will likely be his.
5. The tight ends are back: There you guys are. We missed you last week. Speaking with Coby Fleener after the game, the big man expressed his personal frustration over the performance of the unit last week. Fleener caught four balls for 64 yards and Levine Toilolo had three catches for 50 yards and a touchdown. The 6-foot-8 Toilolo had a drop, but made up for it a couple of plays later, using his height advantage on a 4-yard touchdown jump ball. With the injured Zach Ertz questionable for next week, the duo got the job done. But they are so much better as a trio.

BIG GAME

No matter what the BCS bowl scenario, this is a HUGE GAME! We *must* BEAT CAL!

Lots of speculation this week, some wondering if Stanford will have a let down after the loss to Oregon, ... others are sure we'll crush the Bears.

Video: History of the axe.

Here's a cool summary video of what The Axe means to the players.

Flashback to 1990 (my senior year), when we came back late, missed a 2 pt conversion to be down by 1, but then recovered an onside kick and kicked a field goal.

"Beat Cal" signs around the world...

BEAT CAL!

Hanan's to The Farm

Hauled the family up for this one - planned it a long time ago when we were set on a collision course with Oregon. Kids had a day off school Friday, so we bombed it (drove) up there Thurs after school. Stayed at Janey's pad - never knew they had a basement - worked out GREAT for the kids.

Kids LOVED staying there, especially hanging with Soju (their dog). Cruised campus all day Friday (Hoover Tower, where we ran into the ESPNU RoadTrip crew, Oval to check out Gameday setup, Biz School swanky restaurant, Erin Scholz and Brad Ekstrand joined us, quad, bookstore, Tressider, men's volleyball practice, track house, Oasis).

Awesome Ben quote. I asked him on Friday afternoon when we were watching the volleyball team practice: what is your favorite part so far?

Well, it WILL be the peanuts, but for now it's the QUAD (we're going to the Oasis in a bit - he's been dying to throw peanuts on the floor)

Saturday was a LONG day. Started by going to the ESPN Gameday coverage at the Oval. Jamie drove me and the kids and Jane and dropped us off (then she hung at Starbucks at the mall). Really fun. Lots of people - no chance to get up close to the railing with our signs, so we hung out in the back corner by the band. Got on tv at least once, need to watch the recording to see if any more. Ran into Rick Gould, Jimmy Klein, and Laurie Quinn.

Called Jamie for pickup and back down to San Jose for naps. Rallied to go to the men's water polo game (Connor's interested since he's playing these days) - they crushed Santa Clara. Erin, Cam, Emma Scholz met us there.

After polo, Connor I and I were off to tailgate and the game. Was trying to hookup with the Brehm's (Carlsbad family friends) but never did. Kelly Leonard Martin and Lara Asper hosted a tailgater where Brad Ekstrand was, so hung there mostly. Made a cameo at Laurie Sawin Quinn's party where they had an ice luge. Even Connor and the other kids got to try it (kid friendly 7-up shots). Adults had choice of Kamikaze or Cosmo.

Game time: Kelly talked us into letting Connor go with her son and his buddy, something they apparently do all the time - head into the game on their own, and then the dads catch up. It was totally stressing me out to let C go with them - but he wanted to. In retrospect, I would have preferred to enter the stadium with him, since it was his first time there, get his perspective, enjoy the scene. Oh well. Hooke up at the end of Q1 with the dad that had them and went back to our seats.

Packed house: 50,360. Our seats were in section 237 (I got them on StubHub), but little did I know that there were all Oregon fans in that corner. Ugh. Caught tons of shit from Jane about that one - I won't ever be the guy buying tix again.

See the other post for game info. All in all great time. Connor had a blast, and really seemed to enjoy and appreciate the special circumstances. Jamie said the next day it would be fun to go back and watch a ho-hum game with just general admission tickets. Totally agree (Brad showed me his GA ticket as part of their family pack: $10. A far cry from the $171 EACH I paid for Connor and I)

After game was a little rough. Jane and Dorsey wanted to check out the millionaire Trilogy party that Dave Richard was part of (group of 80 on a chartered jet from Austin on Sat morning, then throw killer adults only party from noon to midnight with bands, etc.) Connor and I wasted time watching the band in the stadium, then slowly walked back to Ford Center. Jane and Dorsey biked back over to their car and came to pick us up. Late drive down to San Jose to crash.

Slow, lazy morning on Sunday, then haul our butts back down to Carlsbad. Got home about 7pm.

GREAT TRIP!

BCS - down to #9

Well, this is better than I was thinking it would turn out. Thought we'd plummet to double digits, but apparently they still like us, just that we're not as good as Oregon (and definitely out of the National Championship picture).

Based on the BCS countdown crew's analysis today, we still have a chance at a BCS bowl. Apparently any of the BCS top 14 teams are eligible for an at large bid to a BCS bowl. We need to play solid games and beat Cal and Notre Dame solidly to have a chance. Having Andrew Luck as a Heisman front-runner is a reason why a bowl (Fiesta?) would want The Cardinal at their place.

Oregon 53 - Stanford 30

DAMN IT! Our first loss! Our 17 game win streak is over! National Championship hopes are crushed! Andrew Luck *may* have just lost the Heisman!

Wow - what a game of bummers.

Whole Hanan clan was there (see here), Connor was at the game.

Stanford just couldn't do anything right in this game. Oregon's defense confused Luck and stopped the run. Our defense could not stop the Ducks and gave up a handful of long plays (4th and 7 for a touchdown for one). 5 turnovers don't help . Best way to sum it up: we played our worst game of the year when we had to play our best.



Some recaps from around the interwebs...

Five things we learned about the Cardinal in their 53-30 loss to Oregon.

• The Cardinal aren’t national title contenders: Not even close, considering how they looked last night. They were inefficient on offense and got pushed around defensively as the game dragged on. When the last chapter of the 2011 season is written, this team will probably go down as one of the best in school history. And it will be. This is a very good football team. But very good isn’t great. And great teams win national championships. There are only a couple of great teams in college football, and the most important thing we learned last night is that Stanford isn't one of them.
• It was a total team loss: The offense turned the ball over too many times (which led to 21 Oregon points) and didn’t capitalize when Oregon gave it gifts (three points off two turnovers). The defense gave up too many big plays -- including touchdowns of 58, 41 and 59 yards. Can’t hang this one on just the offense. Can’t hang it on just the defense, either. Lots of blame to go around.
• History has a funny way of repeating itself: 52-31 last season; 53-30 this year; turnovers playing a major role in the outcome; Andrew Luck intercepted twice … starting to sound a little familiar. Big difference between last year and this year: 1,144 yards of total offense combined last year and 787 this year. But the overall theme was pretty much the same -- wasted opportunities for Stanford against a superior Oregon team.
• Luck’s Heisman hopes just took a hit: If this was the only game voters decided to tune in for to watch a complete Luck performance -- and you know that’s the case for a lot of them -- they saw a quarterback who never got into a rhythm because his receivers had drops compounded with some bad throws and decisions. Luck is still probably the front-runner, but this thing just got a lot closer than it was 24 hours ago.
• For the first time this year, Stanford didn’t react: Whether this falls on the players or the coaches is irrelevant. Oregon did a great job making subtle adjustments throughout the course of the game. Either Stanford’s coaches didn’t respond or the players didn’t respond. Either way, Oregon was the better team in all aspects.

Instant analysis from Oregon's 53-30 win over Stanford.

• How the game was won: Oregon was just better. Better on offense. Better on defense. Stanford’s tight ends couldn’t hold on to the ball. Andrew Luck looked tight and never got into a rhythm. And Oregon capitalized on the big play -- scoring touchdowns of 58, 41 and 59 yards. The five Stanford turnovers didn't help either.
  
• Turning point: Luck was sacked for the second time in the third quarter and fumbled deep in his own territory. LaMichael James scored on a fourth-and-2 a few plays later and the Ducks went up 36-16. It was too big of a deficit for the Cardinal to overcome.
• Player of the game: James was the best player on the field -- on either side of the ball. Whether he was running inside the tackles our bouncing to the outside, he was too fast and elusive for Stanford's defenders. He finished with 146 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries.
• Unsung hero of the game: Not often that we refer to Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas as an “unsung” hero, but he was quietly efficient with three touchdown passes. James stole the show, but Thomas quietly orchestrated an Oregon offense that Stanford could not stop.
• What it means: Stanford’s national championship aspirations have expired. Oregon’s, however, seem to have been resuscitated. For Luck, his Heisman campaign suffers its first serious setback of the year. He threw two interceptions and fumbled. He looked sharp at times, average at others, and below average others. James, on the other hand, gave his Heisman hopes a nice shot in the arm.

Did You Know?

(Happy 11/11/11!)

We are cruising campus today, but here are some interesting notes I found to tide us over until game time.

Some notes to get you through the hours until Saturday. Many thanks to ESPN Stats & Information.

• Four Pac-12 teams are already bowl-eligible: Stanford, Oregon, Arizona State and Washington (USC doesn't count due to NCAA sanctions). Three more can become bowl-eligible with a victory Saturday: California, UCLA and Utah. UCLA and Utah are playing each other, so at least one more team will become bowl-eligible.
• Stanford can clinch the Pac-12 North with a victory over Oregon. The Cardinal haven't won a conference championship since 1999. With a win, Oregon puts itself in the driver’s seat in the Pac-12 North and a third consecutive outright Pac-12 title is well within reach. How impressive would that be? USC (three times) is the only other school since the conference formed in 1959 to win three outright conference titles in a row.
• The Ducks gave the Cardinal their only loss last season, a 52-31 walloping in Eugene. But Stanford hasn't lost since, winning 17 straight — the longest active streak in FBS.
• Oregon has won eight of nine against Stanford. It also has won 18 consecutive conference games, last losing at Stanford in 2009.
• Stanford’s remaining three regular season games are at home, a place where they’ve won 11 straight times.
• No team has been better than Stanford in the red zone this season. The Cardinal are a perfect 52-for-52 in the red zone, and 41 of those scores have been touchdowns.
• Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas has thrown at least one touchdown pass in 21 consecutive games.
• With a win, Stanford will have the first back-to-back 10-win seasons in school history. In fact, entering last season, Stanford had only three 10-win seasons ever.
• Stanford targets its tight ends on 35.6 percent of its pass attempts this season. The Cardinal tight ends have caught a touchdown in every game this season and in 19 of 22 games since the start of 2010. No other BCS top-10 team utilizes its tight ends in the passing game as often as Stanford. The Cardinal go to the tight ends at an even greater rate inside of the red zone. Overall, the tight ends are targeted on 48.5 percent of Stanford’s red zone passes and have caught 13 of Stanford’s 19 red zone touchdowns.

ESPN Gameday and Road Trip

It's official! Ever since we made plans to head up to The Farm for the HUGE Oregon game, I've been hoping for ESPN Gameday to broadcast from there. They announced it yesterday.












Stanford gets into the action on their athletics home page.










Location is set - The Oval.












...and ... now RoadTrip announces that they'll be there too. I'm gonna tweet to Drubner and tell him about Connor and the Tree, see if they'll get us on TV!

Andrew's 9-0 email

Here's another great writeup by Andrew, making us all sit back and realize what a GREAT YEAR this is, regardless of what happens from here out.

We are 9-0, people. NINE and FREAKIN' ZERO.

How many times has Stanford won 9 games in a season?

2011 - 12-1 (I'm guessing you haven't forgotten last year's Orange Bowl yet)
2001 - 9-3 (this was actually the Seattle Bowl year, not the Rose Bowl season under Willingham when we went 8-4)
1992 - 10-3 (the only winning season in Walsh II - Blockbuster Bowl)
1971 - 9-3 (Rose Bowl)
1970 - 9-3 (Rose Bowl)
1951 - 9-2 (Rose Bowl)
1940 - 10-0 (Rose Bowl - did not win the National Championship)
1934 - 9-1-1 (Rose Bowl)
1930 - 9-1-1 (no bowl!)
1929 - 9-2 (no bowl)
1926 - 10-0-1 (Rose Bowl, National Championship)

That's right, in 105 years of Stanford football (12 years where we only played rugby, 4 years total pre-empted by WWI and WWI), we've only done it 11 times before. Only 5 times in our lifetimes.

So on to Oregon...Injuries are becoming a problem.

Shaw indicated that Toilolo will likely play against Oregon.
Ertz was announced as being out for 2 weeks right after the USC game, so I would imagine he is not going to play.
Delano Howell has been questionable for the past 2 games - I have to think that they've been cautious in order to have him available for the Oregon game...gosh I hope he can play.
Jordan Williamson has a groin problem...so it's totally up in the air. I think we need his kickoffs...
Cameron Fleming (right tackle) is a question mark.
Owusu is a question mark (I'm hoping he decides to retire, because I don't want to be watching the game where he suffers some kind of permanent brain damage).

I think the most critical of the injuries are Howell, Toilolo/Ertz (we need at least 1 of them back) and Williamson.

By the way, our chances for making a BCS bowl (assuming that Oregon is our only loss) improved yesterday, as multiple members of the Big 10 choked. If you recall, I think we are competing with the #2 teams from the Big 10, ACC and Big East for the final BCS spot.

Ranked #4 (and 3)

LSU traveled to Alabama this weekend in the big #1 v. #2 showdown. LSU won 9-6 in OT. It was a yawner of a game, with only field goals scored - no touchdowns. Points to great defense I guess, but it could be that the QBs and offenses aren't that good? Tough to compare until we play them in the National Championship! :)

Alabama is still ahead of us in the BCS, despite the loss. Most pundits say that it's only because our strength of schedule is still a little weak. This should change in the next couple weeks after we play Oregon, Cal, and Notre Dame. So in theory if we beat Oregon this Saturday, we'd shoot ahead of Alabama.

Still need Oklahoma St. to lose, since most say that they're strength of schedule will keep them ahead of us in the computers if they (and we) win out.

Stanford 38 - Oregon 13

Now 9-0.

Whew - glad to get through this one. They were calling this the "sandwhich" game - between the huge triple OT game over USC last week and then Oregon next week, it's easy to overlook this trip to Corvalis.

First half looked a little dicey. Rain, we weren't sharp, Luck threw another interception (still only his 5th in 9 games). Scored NO points in the first quarter - first time that's happened all year. Scored 2 unanswered TDs early in the 2nd and started rolling, then pulled away in the 3rd quarter.

Scary time in the 2nd half. Pass to Owusu, who immediately gets hammered (helmet to helmet), drops the ball, Oregon State picks it up and runs it back for TD to get within 3 (17-14). But... it's negated with a penalty called on the hit. Owusu doesn't move, they end up taking him off the field in an ambulance - straight to the hospital. This is the 3rd head injury he's had this season (last one was last week against USC). Later we hear that he's OK, and was back in the locker room with the team after the game. Very questionable obviously for next week's game against Oregon.