A few thoughts about Stanford’s impressive Orange Bowl win over Virginia Tech last night:
• In retrospect, how big of a game was Stanford-Oregon? Wow.
• The Pac-10 can now finish no worse than 2-2 in bowls. (Thanks, Huskies!) Hopefully Oregon makes it 3-1.
• I hope Oregon beats Auburn convincingly, so the final polls are #1 Oregon, #2 TCU and #3 Stanford. Western football FTW!
• Stanford’s in-demand coach, Jim Harbaugh, is reportedly very unlikely to go to Michigan, and is instead choosing between the NFL (probably the 49ers) and staying put: “If he stays in college coaching, he has decided he will stay at Stanford, where he has built a potential powerhouse,” according to “a person with direct knowledge of Harbaugh’s thinking.”
• I suppose, as a USC fan, I should hope Harbaugh bolts, especially with a likely “down” period coming for the Trojans, due to the sanctions. But you know what? I hope he stays. (Luck, too.) The more Pac-12 powers, the better. It’s ultimately good for USC, and also good for college football, I think — enough of this SEC hegemony crap. (Also, I have to admit, despite the pain of 3 losses in 4 years, I kinda have a soft spot for those ever-loving Drunken Trees. Third-favorite Pac-12 team, after USC and Washington? Maybe.)
• With LaMichael James returning to Oregon, and if Harbaugh stays and Luck also returns (perhaps due to the labor situation)… and if Cam Newton goes pro… Oregon & Stanford, preseason #1 and #2? (The Pac-12: it’s a WAR!!!)
• How much must Stanford’s meteoric rise under Harbaugh burn Cal fans, who have been waiting for Tedford’s team to get over that hump forever? (Jeff Tedford:Cal football::Mark Few:Gonzaga basketball. Discuss.)
• Stanford’s rise also makes it a little harder for Notre Dame to use academic standards as an excuse for poor performance on the field, no? Or am I missing some key difference? Granted, Stanford is at least located in California…
• USC officially announced its re-emergence on the national scene with an impressive win over Iowa in the 2003 Orange Bowl. A six-year near-dynasty followed, with a BCS bowl every year, two national titles, one epic title-game loss, and three woulda-coulda-shoulda years (derailed by the Pac-10 war, including the loss to Stanford on a day of infamy in 2007 that made the world a dark and lonely place, full of sadness and mockery and kittens, and incidentally, started the Trees’ ascendancy to where they sit today). Could this impressive Orange Bowl win, seven years after USC’s, serve a similar purpose for Stanford? Could this be the Drunken Trees’ announcement that the Revenge of the Nerds Tour is here to stay? (FEAR THE NERDS!!! THEY WILL CRUSH YOU!!!) Or will this be a fleeting high water mark for a program that’s doomed to return to mediocrity in due time? I hope it’s the former, not the latter. Like I said, USC and the Pac-12 and college football are all better off with multiple western powerhouses competing year in, year out.
• Apropos of which, Stanford should get Boise State, TCU and/or BYU on the phone about non-conference scheduling, because their current slate isn’t exactly inspiring. Let’s get some western-football clashes of the titans going here!
A number of my own thoughts in response:
– Remember your post a few months back about how 13-9 changed everything, and if that game had gone the other way and USC beat Florida in the title game, the whole SEC-is-king meme would have never developed — instead it would have remained the USC-dynasty meme? And now imagine Oregon holds off Auburn after Stanford’s victory last night. We’d then be talking about Pac-10 superiority, not just USC.
– When counting the Pac-10’s bowl record, I think you have to include Utah’s loss to Boise State. That puts the Pac schools at 2-2, with the national title game shifting us to a winning or losing record overall. However, ignore the conference bowl record; just look at the opponents: Nebraska (10-3), Oklahoma State (10-2), Virginia Tech (10-2), Boise State (11-1), and Auburn (13-0). That right there massively inflates our SOS rating, and to go 3-2 against that would be outstanding .
– I think Harbaugh could build a title contender at Stanford, but my guess is he goes to the pros. If he doesn’t succeed in the pros, he can always come back to college and land wherever he wants. Harbaugh will never be this hot a commodity with the NFL types as he is today.
– Stanford as a title contender is good for the Pac-12, but it’s not realistic. Stanford has as apathetic a fan base as you’ll find in football — no solid coach with high ambitions will be satisfied there for long (see: Mike Montgomery, basketball; Ty Willingham, football).
– If Oregon blows out Auburn, Stanford should be #2 over TCU.
– I don’t know how you can have a “soft spot” for Stanford. On the whole, their fans are not as obnoxious as most of the other Pac-10 fans, but their disdain and hatred for USC is off the charts, as evidenced in particular by their band, which is an abomination to mankind and civilization. What tempers them is only their general apathy towards their sports teams (and football in particular). I respect Stanford only because an institution with Ivy League academics that can compete and win titles at the I-A level deserves respect (ergo, why I will always respect Duke and Coach K and defend them from the moronic derision they receive from their haters), and frankly, as an overall university, Stanford is what USC aspires to be. Yet I will never consider it easy to root for Stanford; I’d much rather root for one of the non-California Pac-12 schools to have rampant athletic success than fUCLA, Cal, or Stanford.
– You can’t compare Cal and Gonzaga, Tedford and Few. Gonzaga is a mid-major with a nationwide bandwagon following that scraps well above its weight. They are Manny Pacquiao fighting in the light heavyweight division. Cal is right where they should be, given their institution’s light commitment to long-term competitiveness (athletic, and now academic too). They are like Tito Ortiz — they don’t quite have all the tools, but they could still be great if they actually put the requisite effort and resources into it.
– You are absolutely right — Stanford’s success should shut the pie holes of all the Domers who whine about academics preventing them from winning national championships.
– There’s nothing wrong with Stanford’s OOC schedules, assuming they maintain their series with Notre Dame and fill in with a comparable BCS foe if the Domers aren’t on the slate. Stanford should be playing the likes of Duke, Notre Dame, and Northwestern, and you can’t ignore San Jose State, which is right down the road from the Farm. There’s also nothing wrong with playing a service academy here and there. And let’s recall, the Pac-12 plays a nine-game conference schedule.
“as evidenced in particular by their band, which is an abomination to mankind and civilization”
Agree 100%, one of those rare occurences where AMLTrojanand I do that, meaning it must be true.
“I respect Stanford only because an institution with Ivy League academics that can compete and win titles at the I-A level deserves respect (ergo, why I will always respect Duke and Coach K and defend them from the moronic derision they receive from their haters), ”
Easier to dominate in b-ball, you have a team of distinctly smaller size and needs. I’m more impressed by Stanford because football requires for more pieces.
Easier to dominate in b-ball, you have a team of distinctly smaller size and needs. I’m more impressed by Stanford because football requires for more pieces.
Agree in theory, but domination across two decades is impressive regardless of the sport. If Harbaugh could sustain Stanford as a dominant power for as long as Coach K has with his teams at Duke, I’d agree 100%. It’s wholly debatable whether Harbaugh will ever have a talent like Luck again in his career, and it’s mathematically impossible to have a very experienced, senior-studded OL every single year, so really there’s quite a bit of Luck (pun intended) and good timing to Harbaugh’s success here. Coach K has long since since proved his success isn’t hinged on luck and good timing.
I’ll also say this about the LSJUMB: Yes, there is a place in college athletics for irreverence, crudeness, and obnoxious humor. However, that should be at some far-flung university that doesn’t take itself seriously — not at the “Harvard of the West”.
But it’s funnier precisely BECAUSE it’s at the Harvard of the West!
I know this is sacrilege in present company, but if it isn’t already obvious, I get a kick out of the Stanford Band. I laugh with them AND at them… most especially the (Drunken) Tree. I mean, c’mon! They have a stupid Tree! And they constantly do stupid s**t! It’s hilarious!
Maybe I’d feel differently if I were a band alum, but I think college marching bands tend to take themselves a bit too seriously, and the Stanford Band is a welcome, utterly over-the-top antidote to that. I wouldn’t want them to be MY school’s band, but I’m glad they exist and I hope they don’t ever go away.
their disdain and hatred for USC is off the charts
If I disliked every school whose “disdain and hatred for USC is off the charts,” I would hate every school in the known universe. Face it, AML, we’re the Yankees of college football… or maybe Notre Dame is the Yankees and we’re the Red Sox. Either way, as an alum of both of college football’s two most-hated schools of the 2000s (the SEC as a whole is up there too, but no individual SEC school can match USC or ND because they’ve spread their recent BCS success around too much), I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that everyone hates my alma maters, and I don’t really factor it into the equation of which schools I’m going to secondarily root for, have “soft spots” for, etc.
Brendan @ #5, well I guess it depends on how much you appreciate the pageantry of college football and tradition. To this day, if I go to a USC game at the Coliseum, I absolutely do not want to miss the pre-game show, the halftime show, or Conquest after the game. In particular, the TMB’s version of the national anthem moves me more than any other — I can’t explain why really, but I think it has something to do with the solitary snare & horn combo intro and the way the crescendo builds after that.
When I went to the Rose Bowl in 2004 to see USC play Michigan, I was also excited to see the Michigan band play. The band and associated pageantry is a massive, direct link between the fans in the stands and the players and coaches on the field in so far as the school spirit and camaraderie is concerned, and I enjoy seeing that at other schools — particularly schools like Michigan, Notre Dame, and others with deeply rooted traditions.
Stanford? The Stanford of Walter Camp, Pop Bliss, Fielding Yost, Glenn “Pop” Warner, John Ralston, and Bill Walsh; players like Ernie Nevers, Jim Plunkett, and John Elway. There’s a helluva lot of history there. I just think, Oy! What could have been…. :- /
As for Brendan @ #6, again, you’re woefully ignorant of history. Stanford was USC’s rival for the first half of the 20th century. John McKay hated them so much, he once said, “I’d like to have beaten them by 2,000 points. They have no class. They’re the worst winners we’ve ever come up against.” This prompted an amusing cartoon in the Stanford Daily.
Is USC the Yankees of college football? And not Notre Dame? Maybe. More like, we are the Manchester United. Or maybe we’re FC Barcelona, and the Domers are Real Madrid. Any way you look at it, I agree we are disdained far and wide. But there is disdain and dislike, and then there is arrogant enmity, and that describes Stanford to a T[ree]. Cal fans are hardly bearable, either, but for the most part, other Pac-10 schools and the OOC teams we face that dislike us still treat us with a fair amount of respect. As an example, Oregon fans are downright annoying and jerks and talk a lot of trash, but come game time, they fear USC, and that is what drives their loathing — it’s the hatred borne of being habitually trod underfoot and wanting their chance at vengeance, not the sneering elitist contempt of, “Win or lose, we’re better than you” that you get from Stanford.
Bands can and DO do stuff that isn’t stuffy and boring and taking them selves too seriously.
Hell, a few years back the Husky Band did a show that featured the song She Bangs as the finally. They had William Hung come sing it. It was against Cal.
Hawaii formed a kicker and kicked a field goal at half time. Some schools like Grambling have bands where the kids are on scholarship and they do wicked crazy shows.
Did you see Wisconsin’s half time routine? It was pretty damn impressive.
There’s nothing impressive or ground breaking about Stanford’s “band”. it doesn’t take any work to run around like idiots and use tastless jokes. Seriously, how hard is it to make fun of the catholic church? You think what they did at Notre Dame took more than a drunken half thought?
Its one thing to be offesnive, clever and talented, hence why I give Southpark respect even if i don’t personally enjoy it. Its another to be offensive derivative and lazy, hence why I abhor Family Guy.
I have to say, I think that the statements about Stanford’s “disdain and hatred” of USC are rather far off the mark. Perhaps back in the first half of the 20th century you’re right, Andrew, but in the more recent past, as you say…football just isn’t a big deal at the Farm. This may have changed in the last few years, with the rise of a good football team, but I don’t really expect it’s that different from what it was 5 years ago. The students get slightly worked up over The Big Game against Cal every year, but even that one is less than the typical response to an average game at either of the other schools I’ve attended. While it is true that a decent percentage of the student body there do consider themselves superior to people at most other schools, that really has very little to do with athletics in most comparisons, but is restricted primarily to comparisons with other academic powerhouses — Harvard, MIT, Chicago, and the like.
And, for what it’s worth, in my time at Stanford, the students seemed to care more about the game against ND than the game against USC most years. Now, some of that could well have been practicality — despite some of the weird upsets, most years there was a better chance of beating ND than USC — but I suspect that some of it also had to do with who they saw as their rival schools. ND, for better or for worse, has long made statements about the difficulty of putting together an athletic program when you have high academic standards. Since the students at Stanford will typically argue that they have the highest academic standards of any I-A school, it means something to them if their athletic teams can beat the other academic powerhouses. While I was there, at least, ND had more of a reputation for academics than did USC, and thus beating them was a bigger deal.
ESPN reported Harbaugh may go to the Denver Broncos as well. As a Denverite, I am surprised you weren’t noting that idea. Supposedly, Elway (Stanford alum) is working to get him.