But before we look ahead, we must do one final thing that all sports writers love to do: make comparisons. With the season officially over, where does 2012-2013 team rank among the best Stanford teams of all time?
After Stanford ran roughshod all over California on Saturday, head coach David Shaw noted that the 21-3 road victory was “a blueprint game.” I couldn’t agree more.
The Stanford band ended up on the field all right, but 30 years after “The Play” gave Cal the win and college football one of its most exciting finishes ever, Stanford’s suffocating defense made the 115th Big Game almost anticlimactic with a dominating 21-3 win on Saturday afternoon.
It’s been thirty years since “The Play,” the iconic, miraculous kickoff return touchdown that gave Cal an improbable, controversial 25-20 victory over Stanford. Three decades might be a long time, but it’s a play that not many Stanford or Cal fans can forget.
After falling flat on the national stage last weekend, the Cardinal looks to regain its feet against Cal, which is riding a two-game win streak and looking to spoil the Cardinal’s BCS hopes in its last Pac-12 game of the year.