Nov 18th, 2009
Anybody can tell you Toby Gerhart is an outstanding runner and that the absence of Jahvid Best will hurt Cal, but here are some bits regarding the Big Game you may not have known (and maybe don’t care to know, but may find amusing).
Program cover illustration for 1957 Big Game (love the pipe)
– The particulars of the first Big Game, played in 1892, may be a little hazy to some of you, but you should know the game was played in March, just five months after Stanford opened. The game was played in San Francisco, and it’s a little scary that 20,000 people reportedly showed up, because that’s as many as show up for Stanford games these days. Stanford student manager Herbert Hoover (who went on to build a dam or a vacuum cleaner or something like that) forgot the ball, and the teams had to play with something that resembled a punching bag bought from a nearby store. Cal had warmed up for the tussle by playing San Francisco Boys High School and Berkeley Gym, two of the same teams Stanford played. Presumably, they wanted to pump up their win-loss record rather than trying to strengthen their schedule to raise their computer ranking and BCS standing. Stanford won the first Big Game 14-10, and no one was calling for the head of the losing coach, because neither team had a head coach. Walter Camp became the Stanford coach for the 1982 fall football season.
– Back to 2009: Stanford needs Arizona to beat Oregon on Saturday to have a realistic shot at the Rose Bowl. Of course, Stanford has to beat Cal, too, but that goes without saying. Without going too deeply into the tie-breaker system to determine the Pac-10’s Rose Bowl representative, it’s enough to say Stanford needs to finish in a two-way tie with Oregon and any tie involving Oregon State and/or Arizona leaves the Cardinal in a lesser bowl. If Stanford and Arizona win Saturday, we will look at what else needs to happen for the Cardinal.
– This will be the first season since 1991 that both Stanford and Cal will have winning records in the same season. It’s only the second time in the past 30 years it has happened. It seems when one is good, the other isn’t. Of course, there have been plenty of years when both were lousy.
Toby Gerhart in last year's Big Game -- San Francisco Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers
– As expected in preseason, a player in the Heisman Trophy discussion will play in the Big Game. But it’s not Jahvid Best as predicted, but Tony Gerhart. Gerhart has come to realize in the past few weeks that his professional future is in football, not baseball, which was not apparent to him when the season began. Whether he returns to Stanford next season (he is eligible for a fifth season because he missed nearly all of one season with an injury) is starting to look doubtful. Gerhart is scheduled to graduate in March and he is taking whopping load of 21 class hours during the fall (football players typically take a lighter load during the season). He said he took a math course because he heard the professor was pretty good, and he figured that an archeology class looked interesting so he is taking that too. It also looks like he’s clearing the way for some free time to prepare for the NFL Draft, but that is just speculation.
– Jeff Tedford said there is no chance Best will play in the Big Game, and there was no mention of whether he would play in the Nov. 5 finale at Washington. We will be greatly surprised if he plays against the Huskies, although we could see Best suiting up for a bowl game. — It’s shame Best cannot play,because it ruins a matchup of standout running backs with contrasting styles. Last year Gerhart rushed for 103 yards in the Big Game and Best went for 201.
– Jim Harbaugh’s decision to go for two points after scoring a touchdown to take a 48-21 lead over USC with less than seven minutes left continues to get a lot of play nationally. Harbaugh says he just wanted to keep going full throttle, because you can never tell in a game like that. It’s a lame explanation, and it seems Harbaugh is intentionally giving us a transparently bogus excuse so that there is no mistaking that he was trying to stick it to USC. The two-point decision is so Jim Harbaugh that it should come as no surprise. He is completely un-intimidated by the USC mystique, and seems to want to broadcast that fact. — For some reason there is the notion that when Harbaugh finally signs his contract with Stanford (an announcement supposedly is coming this week) that it will prevent him from taking an NFL job for a long time. There is nothing in a contract that prevents a coach from leaving, and it would not be shocking to see Harbaugh bolt this winter.
Try to determine which team is which in 1904 Big Game -- from "Football for Player and Spectator"
– It used to be that the Stanford-Cal game was the final game of the regular season for both teams, but that’s seldom the case anymore. Only twice in the past 11 years has the Big Game been the regular-season finale for both teams. This year both teams have games after the Big Game, and that has happened only one other time since World War II – 2001, when postponements of games put additional games at the end for both teams. Next year, however, the teams have virtually assured that the Big Game will be the last game for both teams, because it will be played on Dec. 4. There will be 21 days between the Bears’ 11th game and the 12th game against Stanford, making it sort of like a Super Bowl with two weeks of hype beforehand. Stanford will have a mere 14 days to prepare after playing Oregon State on Nov. 20.
