Oregon at Oregon State
Congrats to Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith and the Beavers on their 41-38 upset of No. 15 Oregon at Reser Stadium in Corvallis in the 124th edition of their rivalry game that got its start in 1894. They had to wait out those last 24 seconds after punting the ball back to Oregon who took over at their own 23 yard line. But on 4th and 2 at the 31, with no time left on the clock, Duck QB Tyler Shough completed a seven yard pass but found the ball back in his hands after two laterals. Back in his hands at least until he fumbled the ball to Oregon State’s Alex Austin who ran to mid-field and started a celebration that would have brought all the fans out of the stands had they only been there. But this game of the rivalry was played amid the COVID-19 pandemic and without fans. As Smith noted after the game; “It means a lot to a lot of people, not just the guys sitting in the locker room. It’s too bad Reser Stadium could not be filled right now and have a win like that because it means so much to so many people, especially our in-state kids.”
Down 24-13 at the break and 31-19 after three, Oregon State QB Tristan Gebbia led a 16 play 92 yard drive running it into the end zone himself early in the 4th to pull within five, 31-26. On the second play of Oregon’s next possession from their own 12, Tyler Shough’s pass is intercepted by Nashon Wright at the 33 yard line. Gebbia completes a 31 yard pass to Kolby Taylor for a first and goal at the 2 yard line and Jemar Jefferson runs it in for the Beavers on the next play to finally go ahead 34-31. But Oregon digs in and takes the lead back on a 10 play 75 yard drive culminating in a 1 yard run into the end zone by Cyrus Habibi-Likio putting the Ducks up by 4, 38-34 with 8:27 left in the game.
55 yards, 13 plays, and a long six minutes later, Oregon State is faced with 4th and 7 at the Oregon 15 with just over 2 minutes left in the game and knowing that a field goal still leaves them behind by one. Gebbia’s pass falls incomplete and the Ducks take over and you’re thinking that’s it. I mean why wouldn’t Oregon be able to hold onto this lead and eat up what little time was left after averaging over 5 yards per carry all game long. But credit a tough Oregon State defense who limits the Ducks to just 2 yards on two runs followed by an incomplete pass to force Oregon to punt on 4th and 8 from their own 17 with less than two minutes left. You can imagine how the stadium would have been rocking in Corvallis with the Beavers taking over on their own 47 yard line and 1:55 left in the game to march down the field and not only pull off the upset of a Top 20 team but come out victorious in the 124th meeting of this in-state rivalry.
Tristan Gebbia’s first pass of the drive falls incomplete. But the next two connect for back-to-back first downs to the Oregon 30 yard line with 1:33 left to play. After a 5 yard ineligible receiver downfield penalty on the Beavers, Gebbia completes three more passes in a row-now first and goal at the Oregon 6 yard line with less than a minute to play. RB Jemar Jefferson gets the call and rushes for 4 yards down to the Oregon 2 yard line. Gebbia keeps the ball on a QB sneak and looks as though he scores, but the ball is placed at the 1 yard line. He runs again for no gain on a play where the Oregon defense was clearly offside. Not only was there no call, Gebbia comes out of the stack limping and has to leave the game. It’s 4th and goal at the Oregon 1 yard line. Enter Oregon State Sophomore back-up QB Chance Nolan, for the first play of his college career, who takes the ball into the end zone for a 41-38 lead that held.
It was clear early on that Oregon State RB Jermar Jefferson was going to be a big part of this contest, scoring an 82-yard touchdown on his first carry of the game and setting a rivalry record with 226 yards rushing on 29 attempts-an average of 7.5+ yards per carry. More yards, in fact, than the entire Oregon ground game of 183 yards and 3 TD’s on 34 attempts against 269 yards and 4 TD’s on 44 attempts by Oregon State. The QB’s were within 22 yards of each other on the night with Oregon’s Tyler Shough picking up 2 TD’s to Gebbia’s 1 score. But Shough also threw 2 picks, one late in the contest leading to a TD and Oregon State’s first lead of the game.
Oregon, 3-1, falls behind an undefeated Washington in the PAC-12 North and will hit the road to take on a very frustrated Cal team who is sitting surprisingly at 0-3. Oregon State, now 2-2, and sitting in third place behind Oregon will also be traveling to face an equally frustrated 0-2 Utah team, sitting just one spot out of the basement in the PAC-12 South.
Stanford at Cal
As the Mercury News writes; “In 1918, the planet was in calamitous shape on multiple fronts. World War I was coming to an end and a global flu pandemic raged on, eventually taking the lives of 50 million worldwide. Against that horrifying backdrop, less than three weeks after the WWI armistice was signed, Cal and Stanford played Nov. 28, on Thanksgiving Day.”
Before the game, a bit of history about the rivalry with some help from Wikipedia. The “Big Game” rivalry is one of the oldest in college football and THE oldest in the west with the first being played in 1892, arranged by none other than the future President of the United States-Herbert Hoover. Hoover was the student manager of the football team at Stanford and he, along with his friend Herbert Lang, who was the manager of the Cal football team, came up with the idea of creating a rivalry game since both teams were located in the San Francisco Bay area. To say that it caught on is an understatement. Hoover and Lang had 10,000 tickets printed up but 20,000 people showed up. By 1900 the contest was already being referred to as the Big Game. Since 1933 the winning team is awarded the Stanford Axe Trophy which consists of an axe-head mounted onto a large wooden plague engraved with the scores of all the past Big Games.
The initial excitement for the game by the fan base has never worn off and many other competitions between the schools and events in the week prior to the match-up have become traditions as well, like: The Big Sail (sailing); The Big Splash (water polo); the Big Spike (volleyball); The Big Freeze (ice hockey); and the Ink Bowl where members of the two school newspapers compete in a game of touch football. There’s an annual cable car rally, a tree chopping contest, singing competitions and the Big Game Bonfire Rally that takes place at Berkeley on the night before the Big Game where more than 10,000 students gather to hear the history about the Stanford Axe and The Big Game. If that were to have taken place this year they would have had to temporarily rename it The Big Game Super Spreader Event.
According to the Mercury News it’s always games that take place in the even years that have produced the craziness. For the first time in the history of this match-up neither team has won a game yet and will be playing in an empty stadium followed by a week of cancelled traditional events. In 2018 the game was postponed because of the wildfires. In 1982 one of the most memorable plays in sports history, so memorable it is known simply as “The Play” took place. After Stanford forged ahead 20-19 on a field goal with just four seconds left they kicked the ball off. However, thinking the game had already been won, the Stanford Band started running onto the field to celebrate. Cal took the kick-off and pressed on, using five lateral passes while running between the band on the field to score a winning TD. Whether or not all of those passes were laterals has been hotly argued over the years between opposing fans. Eight years later in 1990 Stanford finally got even, scoring nine points in the final 12 seconds to win.
And now 2020 . . .
The sideline camera replayed Stanford Head Coach David Shaw jumping up and down in that final moment when the contest was finally decided by his defense who blocked Cal’s extra point attempt-ensuring the Cardinal their first win of the season, a 24-23 victory on Cal’s home turf in Memorial Stadium. The Golden Bear’s Junior RB Christopher Brown Jr. had scored a 3 yard rushing TD to pull them within one with just three seconds left on the clock. Being on their own field and thinking they would have the advantage in overtime Cal decided to go for the PAT instead of a 2-point conversion. Head Coach Justin Wilcox talked about it afterwards; “We felt good about going to overtime. Obviously it was the wrong decision, and I own that 100%. There’s a lot of pain and frustration that we didn’t play better. We had multiple opportunities to win the game and we didn’t get it done.”
Stanford was out-rushed 241 yards to 95, but not out-scored on the ground as Cardinal Sophomore RB Austin Jones picked up 85 yards and 2 TD’s on 21 attempts against the lone rushing TD by Cal mentioned above. Stanford QB Chase Garbers was clean on the day connecting for 65% of his passes for 151 yards, 2 TD’s and no interceptions while his opponent was even more efficient at 75% for 205 yards, 1 TD and no picks. In what has become a hallmark of this season of little practice and no pre-conference games, Cal fumbled the ball twice, one at their own 31 yard line after the break leading to a Stanford TD and a 7 point lead three plays later.
As the score indicates the game was close in many ways and tied at the break 10-10. Both teams recorded 37 solo tackles, 4 sacks a piece, with Stanford picking up 7 tackles for loss and Cal 6. Neither team really set the world on fire in this game with more than a third of all possessions resulting in a three-and-out. If Coach Shaw awards a game ball, it had to go to the Special Teams I’m sure and Curtis Robinson and Thomas Booker specifically who respectively blocked a Cal field goal right before the half and saved the victory with a block of that PAT at the end. As Coach Shaw said afterwards; “We have the talent to influence games on special teams. It was great to see it happen today.”