“I knew it was a big deal, but I didn’t know it would become such a big deal”, Joe Starkey, Cal’s radio broadcaster, told The Daily Californian in 2012. Stanford is ranked 11th and favored. He’s got 3.5 sacks, but it is the official position of CGB that he should not get any more in the Big Game, lest he be accused of spying for the enemy.
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This one features two of the league’s top QBs in Jeff Goff (3,324 yards and 30 TDs) and Kevin Hogan (a 162.1 quarterback rating).
On the ensuing possession, Stanford’s running game asserted itself.
The Cardinal have won the past five meetings, often in dominating fashion.
Halftime: Stanford 21, Cal 6. After a near-interception by Texas, Harrell found wide receiver Michael Crabtree on the next play near the sidelined at the 6-yard line.
Cal drove right back down the field. “Because it’s hard. We just point him in a direction and we wait to hear just like they do”. “Those were three scores that could have changed it”.
A series of preceding plays set up the miraculous finish.
For the game, he had 389 all-purpose yards.
“He’s an awesome quarterback, and they have a lot of weapons this year, ” Martinez said. Fifth-year senior Remound Wright did what he does best, scoring from 2 and 1 yards out, respectively, on the Cardinal’s first and second-to-last touchdowns. But if the Cardinal plays press coverage and collapses the pocket before Goff can unload the ball, the Bears are doomed. The attempt fell short, but Auburn punt returner Chris Davis fielded the kick in the back of the endzone with triple zeros on the clock and raced all the way to the opposite endzone for what was unofficially the longest miss field goal return in college football history. I kind of ran straight.
Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey isn’t the type.
“It was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday”, Shaw said. I haven’t seen anybody.
“If we were 0-9 this would be an important game”, Harvard coach Tim Murphy said.
And if you scrub to around 0:25, you might see a middle-aged woman say, “You f***ing kidding me…” He’s truly, truly special. Kickoff returner, runner, receiver, blocker. At that point, he sidestepped the remaining defenders and raced into the end zone. Harris caught the ball, brought it down, but as he brought it down, Stanford cornerback Alijah Holder knocked the ball loose.
On the following play, Goff threw a pass to Kenny Lawler in the end zone. Mark Harmon nailed the 35-yard field goal on a play that only took four seconds. He has just 331 yards this season and has carried the ball more than 10 times in a game just twice.
Vic Enwere had five carries for 19 yards, but also completed a pass to Goff for 12 yards.
The trend that applies, in my mind, is Cal’s lack of success against the Big Four: Stanford, Oregon, USC and UCLA – the teams that matter most. Enwere took the handoff and ran right. More often than not, they’ve been part of the #Pac12AfterDark package.
But against Stanford, there was always a sense that additional opportunities would be there.
“We’ll certainly find out Saturday”, Dykes said. “We do what we do, they do what they do and I think we’ll have a heck of a game”. In fact, Stanford may have taken a step forward under Shaw. “We like to get the juices going”. “We felt like if we could keep getting field goals, that was better than not getting anything”. The 16-6 defeat to the Wildcats suggested Stanford was in line for a down season, but the Cardinal have turned things up a couple of notches since starting Pac-12 play.
No Pac-12 team will make the College Football Playoff.
The Bears could also slide to an at-large berth with a bowl that does not have a contract with the Pac-12…
The six/seven win pool could consist of Washington State, Oregon, Utah, USC/UCLA. Bowls assignments are made on the basis of conference wins and Cal now is tied for seventh. The Sun, Las Vegas and Cactus bowls have the Nos.
But they probably weren’t, and that’s a big problem. They’re 7-3 against the spread in their last 10 road games and 5-2 ATS in their last seven road games versus a team with a winning home record. And how about this stat – the Dawgs have 122 rebounds in two games thus far. Where Cal barely beat lesser teams past year, this season they’ve beaten a few of them convincingly.
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“It hurts”, said Watson. “This is a big game and it really hurts”. There are many strong candidates who make great cases, but McCaffrey’s recent body of work, including nine straight game of at least 100 yards on the ground and eight games of 200 total yards, can’t be ignored. There’s a attractive clarity to McCaffrey’s game, something to be trusted and relied upon.
