Stanford’s 2013 football schedule may have been accidentally released Wednesday evening, although not officially by the Pac-12, and it appears as though the road back to Pasadena—the host site for next year’s BCS National Championship Game—will be anything but easy for the Cardinal.
Stanford defensive coordinator Derek Mason and five Cardinal defenders held sessions with the media on Thursday before the team began practices for Tuesday’s Rose Bowl against Wisconsin.
On a wet night at Stanford Stadium, Stanford quarterback Hogan did just enough on offense and Shaw put his faith in Jordan Williamson, who delivered a game-winning 36-yard field goal with five minutes left in the fourth quarter to break a 24-24 tie with UCLA and send Stanford to the Rose Bowl as Pac-12 champions, something Harbaugh or Luck couldn’t do.
I can’t guarantee a winner tonight, but here are the changes each team will look to make if it wants to represent the Pac-12 at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.
Only 30,000 of the 50,000 seats in Stanford Stadium had been sold for the Pac-12 Championship game as of Wednesday morning, the San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday. Stanford’s director of ticket sales and services still expected the final attendance to reach into the mid-40,000s.
You’re too busy to go to the Pac-12 Championship Game? If a Stanford professor has the time to go to every home game and cheer from the sidelines, then it’s certainly not too much for you to clear three hours from your schedule on one Friday night.
Stanford has struggled with home field advantage all season, empty seats staring down as one of the nation’s top teams has marched to a third-straight double-figure winning season. But even the most die-hard fans out there started as fair-weather ones, and right now the forecast is looking pretty sunny for the future at Stanford.