Cal at Stanford
Both teams started off slow in this one with Stanford throwing an interception on their first possession of the game, Cal fumbling on their turn, and then throwing an interception themselves on their next possesion. At the beginning of the 2nd Qtr, after Stanford failed to score on four attempts from the Cal 8 yard line, Cal hit pay dirt four plays later as QB Chase Garbers connected with Trevon Clark for an 84 yard TD to go up 7-0. After holding Stanford to a three-and-out they scored again at the end of an 11 play, 80 yard drive, on another Chase Garbers TD pass, this time to Christopher Brooks—14-0 Cal. Stanford would finally get on the board just before the half on a Joshua Karty 32 yard field goal to get the score a little closer, 14-3.
Although Stanford would finally put up a TD on their third possesion after the break, Cal started the 2nd half off by scoring on their first five possessions including 3 TD’s and 2 field goals topping it off with a pick six to go up 41-11 with less than four minutes left in the game. Stanford had no control over the line of scrimmage on either offense or defense giving up 284 yards and 2 TD’s in the air as well as 3 TD’s and 352 yards on the ground. They couldn’t run the ball, rushing 26 times against Cal for a mere 43 yards and 1 TD. Stanford Sophomore QB Tanner McKee did connect on 60% of his passes, 26-of-43 for 239 yards, but none of those translated into points on the boards and two of the misses resulted in interceptions—one that pick six.
Hey, let’s face it Stanford is horrible which is why they are in the basement of the PAC-12 North. As a matter of fact in 2019, the last full year of PAC-12 football prior to the pandemic, the Cardinal ended up in the basement as well with a conference record of 3-6 and overal record of 4-8. Jimmy Lake got fired after 13 games at Washington, Rolovich and 4 assistants got the heave-ho at Washington State—although I do think they found a great head coach in their former Defensive Coordinator Jake Dickert, USC will be getting rid of pretty much everybody, Ed Ogeron is out at LSU after winning a national title just two years ago, and there’s a lot of speculation about whether or not Chip Kelly should be retained in Westwood. How about David Shaw, how long exactly does he get a pass? Maybe that will come to a head after their next game when they get another chance to embarass themselves at home again—this time against Notre Dame this coming Saturday at 5:00pm on FOX while Cal hits the road to take on UCLA.