Stanford 24, USC 23. The Trojan’s collapse, after being favored
by 40 points on Saturday (and the betting line actually got smaller
as the week went on), is on par, if not greater, than Appalachian
State-Michigan and UC Davis-Stanford.
Stanford 24, USC 23.
The Trojan’s collapse, after being favored by 40 points on Saturday (and the betting line actually got smaller as the week went on), is on par, if not greater, than Appalachian State-Michigan and UC Davis-Stanford. What makes the defeat so stunning is the drastic difference in talent between the two teams. The divide in this past Saturday’s game was bigger than the debacle that befell the Cardinal two years ago, or the catastrophic Michigan loss earlier this season.
The Wolverines lost to the current back-to-back champion of what is formerly known as Division I-AA. That would roughly translate to a .500 record in a middle-tier conference in D-IA (Sun Belt, WAC, etc.). Stanford-UCD, two seasons ago, was like two D-IAA schools playing each other. The Cardinal were terrible, by far the worst the Pac-10 has had to offer, which leveled the playing field. In the two years since that game, the recruitment of elite football talent at Stanford has dwindled due to the lofty academic standards in place. You could make the case that this year’s team has even less talent than the squad that lost to UCD.
Which makes it all the more incredible.
Stanford’s most talented player was standing on the sideline with a headset – former NFL quarterback and current coach Jim Harbaugh. The team’s next best player (first-string QB T.C. Ostrander) had a seizure nine days ago, leaving freshman Tavita Pritchard, a guy who had thrown all of three passes in his college career, to take on the mighty Trojans.
It should have been a slaughter. It should have been a massacre. It should have been on the level of Gilroy vs. Alvarez.
Instead, it was a feather in Stanford’s and Harbaugh’s collective cap. Every football player who can score touchdowns and score high on the SAT, should take notice of what happened. Of course, if Harbaugh gets a few more victories of this caliber, you can bet he’ll be recruiting those kids while wearing a different school’s colors.
n Cal did nothing on Saturday and moved to No. 2 in the nation through losses by USC and Wisconsin. Had Florida made a few more plays on Saturday and toppled LSU, the Bears would be No. 1.
Not that it wouldn’t have been sweet to be called the best, but taking the day off is no way to earn a promotion. Unless you’re George Costanza.
– If I had told you in the preseason that by week five the NFC West would showcase an 0-5 St. Louis Rams team, a Seattle squad that can’t get running back Shaun Alexander past the line of scrimmage and an Arizona team whose hopes will rest on Kurt Warner staying healthy and confident in the pocket, you would probably say the San Francisco 49ers were shoe-ins to take the division.
That is until Niner fans’ hopes became tied to the noodle-armed Trent Dilfer. He makes Ken Dorsey look like Brett Favre when it comes to arm strength.
– Oakland returns from a bye week to play at San Diego this week. After the Charger’s 40-3 dismantling of Denver at Mile High on Sunday, it looks like The Bolts are back. Something tells me this game is going to be a typical Raiders-Chargers game like the last few years.
– Denver delayed a game-winning field goal with a last-second timeout to ice the kicker and beat the Raiders in week two. Oakland pulls the same trick a week later to beat Cleveland. Buffalo does it on Monday Night Football and Dallas’ kicker hits not one, but two 53-yard field goals to win the game.
A friend of The Backup Punter and die-hard Bills fan – who has aged considerably through traumatic losses since childhood (think dog years, people) – could only say, “It works for everyone, except the Bills.”
As he went into detail of how he could sense an ensuing stomach punch as the game wore on, I realized this was the most disappointing Bills loss in the last seven years, just behind the Music City Miracle and Scott Norwood’s kick that went wide-right.
He closed by saying, “I don’t think I’m going to work tomorrow.”
