This Saturday, the 6-5 California Golden Bears will face off against the 3-8 Stanford Cardinal in the 111st Big Game (take that Grey Cup!). Cal started out of the gate 5-0 before losing five of their last six games, while Stanford had an up and down year that included a win over #1 USC and a bunch of losses. They still tripled the one win they had last year, so at this pace of improvement they should be playing in the Rose Bowl by next year!
Stanford currently leads the Big Game series 55-44-11, so this year's result will mess up the numerology no matter who wins. Cal has won the last five Big Games, but Stanford won the seven befor that, so the series tends to run in cycles. It always seems like both schools can't be good at the same time, so they take turns sucking.
Cal his having a down year by Jeff Tedford terms in 2007, but Stanford is still young and rebuilding, so I look for the Cal Bears to win the game, take the Axe, and take the lifetime series to 55-45-11. They're still playing for a bowl (alebit a nd one) while Stanford is playing for pride. And regaining the Axe.
The most famous Big Game was the 1982 game that Cal won on a last second kickoff return, which included five laterals and a final run through the Stanford band. It's normally referred to as The Play round these parts, and this year marks the25th anniversary, so there's been a lot of talk this week about The Play. More excuses to play Joe Starkey's call over and over:
"The band is on the field! Oh, excuse me for my voice, but I have never, never seen anything like it in the history of I have ever seen any game in my life! "
I wasn't living in the Bay Area back in '82, but have seen the highlight a few hundred times in the past 25 years, and still haven't seen anything like it in the history of I've ever seen any game in my life either.
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