Ah, the first full week of college football is almost here, and the four-month vice grip on the nation’s consciousness will begin in earnest.
While gargantuan matchups pepper the schedule from Labor Day weekend to New Year’s Day, there’s nothing quite like the anticipation surrounding the primetime games of week one, where the combination of football deprivation and heavy uncertainty open the doors wide for the unpredictable.
True to form, this year’s opening-week slate offers no shortage of firepower with Texas traveling to Notre Dame, Arizona State meeting Texas A&M and Alabama clashing with Wisconsin in Cowboys Stadium, to name just a few.
Week one of the college football season is a birthday wrapped in Thanksgiving and stuffed inside Christmas — a devilish turducken of joy — and it’s almost upon us.
But where does Stanford-Northwestern fit into this equation? A morning slugfest in what promises to be a muggy day in Evanston will not move the hype needle quite like Alabama-Wisconsin in the very monument to opulence and excess that is Jerryworld, so what do we make of this matchup?
Since it is not a primetime game, it seems only natural to look at other storylines in assessing the significance of the Cardinal’s season opener. And Stanford-Northwestern has more than its share of straws at which to grasp; two schools with strong academic reputations battling for supremacy; a clash of two head coaches who both played for their respective schools in the ‘90s and have spurned overtures from enticing suitors to continue their quest of building mainstays out of nontraditional college football powers; or, perhaps most importantly, a potential milestone in the debate regarding unionization and the future of amateur athletics.
These brands of pregame chatter, though, while cute, witty and maybe even accurate to some degree, are just that: noise. Stanford-Northwestern is just another football game, and that’s precisely why we should covet this matchup; it presents an opportunity to kick off the season watching two physical, well-coached football teams do what they best. No more, no less.
If this framing seems a little bland, consider just how infrequently we get a chance to sit back and appreciate the game in its purity. All too often, our news feeds are inundated with stories along the lines of the Art Briles-Chris Petersen finger-pointing saga or Steve Sarkisian appearing to operate at suboptimal levels of cognitive function at a university event. Far too often, the sideshow circus hijacks the main event.
Nevertheless, there’s no denying that there is a serious academic flavor to this game, and as Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel described in his celebrated 2013 cover story “Revenge of the Nerds,” both Shaw and Fitzgerald take their task of elevating the importance education in college football seriously.
As Shaw himself stated after practice last Friday: “I think it’s good for us to schedule these games. I think it’s good for us to be a united front. I respect what they do at Northwestern. I respect Pat Fitzgerald as much as anyone… He does his job the right way… Schools like us should play each other.”
“And play at a high level.”
Ultimately, as Shaw alluded to, Saturday’s matchup will be defined by the product on the field. While it may not be as breathtaking of a display as some of the other nonconference matchups, there is value in watching two highly competitive football teams, who, by all accounts, operate with nothing but integrity, battle to start 2015 on a high note after disappointing campaigns the previous season.
There will come a time where we can debate U.S. News rankings or engage in serious debate regarding the future of amateurism. But that day is not Saturday; Sept. 5 will be about Kevin Hogan and Clayton Thorson, Christian McCaffrey and Justin Jackson, Ronnie Harris and Nick VanHoose. It will also be centered on David Shaw and Pat Fitzgerald, but as football coaches, not star-crossed ambassadors of the game destined to meet.
And it will be another clash between the Pac-12 and Big Ten, where the slate is clean and all dreams remain in the realm of possibility. This will be the real storyline of Stanford-Northwestern, a quality early-morning nonconference matchup to get the party started.
May this college football season bring us as much joy as the ones that preceded it, and let’s do our part and appreciate the game in front of us and not the absurdity on the periphery. Let the journey begin.
Vihan Lakshman’s advice to focus on the game in front of us and not dwell on the peripheries is somewhat ironic, as he is inevitably going to spend too much time watching football this fall as he starts his senior year and looks to finish his degree in math and computational science. Remind him of his priorities at vihan ‘at’ stanford.edu.