Berserkley once more: Stanford wins on a blocked PAT

By Art Spander

BERKELEY, Calif. — It was Berserkley all over again, this time with cardboard cutouts in attendance.

You can put masks on the coaches, but you can’t cover up the unpredictability of a game when Stanford is at Cal.

So much has been made about The Play, the laterals, legal and illegal, that gave Cal the win in 1982 and gave TV a lifetime of reruns.

Then, almost forgotten, in 1988 a kid from Vietnam, Tuan Van Le, blocked a short field goal with three seconds left to keep Stanford in a 19-19 tie.

In this Covid-19 season, on a Friday at Memorial Stadium, without fans but certainly not without drama, Thomas Booker of Stanford blocked a Cal extra point attempt with less than a minute left to preserve a 24-23 victory.

That was after Cal had a field goal partially blocked late in the first half.

When the PAT was blocked, on the sideline Cal coach Justin Wilcox showed his shock by grabbing at his mask and momentarily pulling if off his face.

Cal also lost two fumbles, one on a muffed punt deep its own territory that set up Stanford’s first touchdown.

Asked what he would do to correct the failings, Wilcox said, “It’s unacceptable. On special teams, it’s literally a simple technique that we have to execute with great effort, and we are having issues.”

That’s putting it mildly.

“I’ve got to help give them answers,” said Wilcox. “We’ve got to coach better. And we’ve got to perform better on special teams.”

So someone perceptively asked why, after that last touchdown, didn’t Cal — which had been moving the ball well — go for the two-point conversion?

“I felt we had shored up (the defense) where we needed to be shored up,” said the coach, “and I felt good about going into overtime. That’s on me.”

Booker, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound junior, said the defense had been getting in against Cal on place kicks.

“We had put pressure on them earlier,” Booker said, “so I knew we had a chance.” 

What both teams wanted this bizarre season, with games being cancelled, was a chance to get off the schneid, in gambling lingo, to grab a win. And although outplayed the first half, Stanford got that win.

And thus in what was the 123rd Big Game, the Cardinal regained the old trophy, the Stanford Axe.

Cal took it in 2019, after nine straight Stanford wins, and the school’s rally committee was not going to allow anyone to forget.

On a huge section of empty seats, the big, colored ones used for card stunts were aligned so they read “OUR,” with a depiction of the axe.

We’re familiar, unfortunately, with the restrictions and adaptations brought about by the pandemic, golf tournaments held without galleries, ball games with nobody in the bleachers, but perhaps nowhere is the void more noticeable than in college football.

It was a spectacularly beautiful late-autumn afternoon for the game, and in any other year on a day like that there would have been tailgate parties packed with people wearing red or blue, laughing, shouting and relishing the camaraderie of sport.

But it was not to be, understandably. The streets were empty. The only sounds were from those piped in growls and groans that have nothing to do with cheers or chants.

The national anthem and Cal fight song were played. That should be enough, right?

Maybe next year we return to normal, as far as celebrating our sports. Of course, the way this one ended seems normal for a Cal-Stanford game.

Garbers gets the call, and Cal gets the Big Game

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

STANFORD, Calif. — The football cliché is that quarterbacks get too much credit for a victory or too much blame for a defeat, that what they contribute to a team is overrated.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Stanford has a defense — and a ninth straight win over Cal

By Art Spander

BERKELEY, Calif. — Cal scored a touchdown. When it didn’t matter. Not even against the point spread. Certainly not even against Stanford.

Sure, you want to do something besides kick field goals (or in one case, miss a field goal), but getting your only TD with 10 seconds remaining — and the crowd, once more frustrated, heading out of Memorial Stadium — is just eyewash.

This was supposed to be a close one, a couple of points was the line, and it was close. On the scoreboard for a while. But not on the field. We knew that Stanford had an offense. What we realized with its 23-13 victory, its ninth straight over the Golden Bears, was that Stanford has a defense.

If you want the disappointment — from the Cal viewpoint — distilled to a small segment, try these five plays in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, with Stanford in front, 13-6.

Cal quarterback Chase Garbers, on first and 10 from the Stanford 34, throws an interception in the end zone. Next play, Stanford’s all-everything running back, Bryce Love, oops, fumbles and Cal recovers on the Stanford 23. But four plays later Cal misses a 36-yard field goal.

There was 12:49 remaining, but for all effects the game was over.

And shortly in the Cal locker room, you heard the lament you hear from most losing locker rooms, to wit: “We missed too many opportunities.”

They missed them because they weren’t as good as Stanford, which now is 8-4 and heading to a bowl game while Cal is 7-5, also heading to a bowl.

As you know, this one was supposed to be played two weeks ago but had to be postponed because of unhealthy air caused by the smoke from the fire in Butte County.

The delay most likely didn’t change the result. Stanford not only beat Cal, as usual, but UCLA as usual (11 in a row there) and USC, sweeping the state, as it were.

Cal ended up with more yards, 352 to 329. Missed opportunities are not found in the statistics columns

“It hurts bad,” said Justin Wilcox, Cal’s second-year coach. “Everyone feels kicked in the gut. They know they had chances, and we don’t need to relive all those things. They know they had opportunities, and that stings.”

And then he dropped a line that was a reminder that often what you are unable to do is what the other team won’t let you do: “Stanford is a heck of a program. They’ve been winning for a long time.”

A program that David Shaw has coached as close to perfection as an academic school — meaning Stanford, Cal, UCLA and other Pac-12 institutions — can be.

The Alabamas and Georgias and LSUs are in a different category. Knowing that, knowing that at Stanford and Cal the SATs are no less significant than TDs, then what Shaw and Stanford have achieved is particularly impressive.

“We needed our defense to pick us up,” said Shaw, “which they did. We got two red zone stops and forced them to kick two field goals early on.”

After Stanford had a touchdown and a field goal, and a 10-0 lead.

“The second half was all about defense,” said Shaw. “We got a lot of stops and stifled their running game. Paulson Adebo made two unbelievable interceptions.”

Both in the fourth quarter, one with one hand.

“I was just trying to make a play,” said Adebo. “Everybody talked about how highly emotional (the game) is, but you can’t understand until you’re actually in that situation.”

The situation for Cal is that it is closer to Stanford than in those years when the Cardinal scored five and six touchdowns, but it still isn’t close enough to stop the domination.

“We’ve grown this year,” agreed Wilcox, “but there’s not a lot you can tell (the players) to make them feel better; it’s the truth. Each and every week we are trying to improve, and that means winning. That’s what it’s all about. Winning. So when we don’t, it hurts.”

And against rival Stanford, after nine losses in a row, it’s especially painful.

Best Big Game in years decided by big run, big mistake

By Art Spander

STANFORD, Calif. — One great burst by the other guy, the great runner, Bryce Love. One big mistake by their guy, the improving thrower.

The best Big Game in years could be distilled down to those two plays, which is both unfair of so many plays but very fair because, in a game as close as this one was Saturday night, the difference invariably is a play or two.

Yes, as expected, Stanford won, beating Cal for an eighth straight time of out 120 times the schools have played, but they won 17-14, the smallest margin of those eight games. And against a team that has more muscle and has had much more success, that counts for something.

Stanford was supposed to win this one and win it big, as it has the past few years before Justin Wilcox took over this year as Cal’s coach, installing a defense, instilling hope.

Yet the Golden Bears were there at the end, basically until their thrower, their quarterback, Ross Bowers, went deep and was intercepted.

“This one hurt,” said Wilcox. “We had our opportunities. We weren’t able to capitalize.”

What they didn’t have, or didn’t have enough, was the ball. Stanford grinds it out and grinds you up, and then unsurprisingly, Love, the prep sprint champ, gets the ball and, literally untouched, goes 57 yards down the sideline in the third quarter.

Cal got that touchdown back when Bowers bulled a yard to end a 75-yard drive. But in the fourth quarter, after Cal had moved to the Stanford 48, Bowers threw long and was picked off on the six-yard line. There were more than seven minutes remaining on the clock. But in reality, time had run out for Cal.

“We strain to compete against Stanford,” said Wilcox. His record as a rookie head coach, Cal’s record, is 5-6, 2-6 in the Pac-12, with a game remaining Friday night against UCLA in Los Angeles.

Stanford is 8-3. 7-3, also with a game to play, against Notre Dame. But it’s another game, between Washington State, which beat Stanford, and Washington, which lost to Stanford, that has more meaning to the Cardinal.

A Washington victory and Stanford plays in the Pac-12 championship against USC. A Washington State victory, and it’s old WSU (Wazoo in the vernacular) that faces the Trojans.

But that doesn’t particularly concern Wilcox.

“It was one of those games,” said Wilcox of Cal-Stanford, “when we knew possession and third-down situations would be important.”

Of course. When you’re the underdog, the team that is trying to prove it belongs, trying to change the direction of recent history, you must keep the ball on drives and stop the other team — Stanford in this case — when needed, which Cal was unable to do.

That’s why Stanford is an elite team and why Cal is not.

The stats were balanced and misleading. Cal converted 6 of 12 third downs. So did Stanford. But Stanford kept the ball when it had to. In the third and fourth quarter.

That was Stanford football under David Shaw, power football, get the ball and shove it through the other guys, eating up the clock, wearing down the opponent. It’s brought them to Rose Bowls and other bowls.

And still it’s the one man, the Christian McCaffrey, the Bryce Love, who makes the big move, who shows the greatness. We used to think of Stanford for quarterbacks, John Brodie, Jim Plunkett, and John Elway. Now it’s all about running backs, about grabbing the football and either dashing or powering to daylight. That beats up the defensive line. That keeps the ball away from the other team.

Love is from North Carolina, Wake Forest, which has a darn good university football team. But he came west, and if Stanford wasn’t playing those awful late-night games (it was after 11:30 pm in the east when the game ended) he would have good shot at the Heisman, injured ankle or not.

Love has 11 touchdowns of 50 yards or more this season, breaking a FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) record. His teammates, naturally, were elated.

“It’s down to the point,” said Stanford receiver JJ Arcega-Whiteside, ”where it’s like, ‘There he goes again, let’s go celebrate with him in the end zone.’”

A celebration that, for Cal, was something they watched with pain and regret.

S.F. Examiner: Cal hopes newest hire ushers in era of tough football, beating rivals

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

Berkeley isn’t Tuscaloosa, or Ann Arbor. Cal is known for academics, not athletics. Then again, so is Stanford, and therein lies the challenge for the new guy with the Golden Bears, Justin Wilcox.

To win a game now and then from the Cardinal, to restore a sense of respectability to the football program, maybe even — to dream — make it to Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner