Stanford upsets USC again

Submitted by BoFan on

Once again Stanford upsets USC - 4 straight wins for Stanford.  This is good for Michigan and good for Denard.  I'm also a Stanford and Michigan grad.  Barkley had a terrible game.  0 TDs and 2 INTs.  

DonAZ

September 16th, 2012 at 7:42 AM ^

 

Stanford's D-line put in one of the more impressive performances I've seen in awhile. They broke Barkley.

Karma is a bitch.  It was USC's defensive line play that allowed them to beat Oregon last year.   The best laid offensive plans can be pretty well eff'd up by a defensive line that get through and disrupts the backfield timing.

stephenrjking

September 15th, 2012 at 11:44 PM ^

Barkley had no chance. I can't remember ever seeing worse line play from a championship contender. We know what it feels like--Molk was banged up in the Sugar Bowl and gone for the first time against Bama, and you saw the results.



Harbaugh gets a lot of hate here, but I cut my Michigan teeth watching him win for us and he'll always be a Mochigan guy to me; what is clear is that he's an incredible coach who not only coaches his teams well but leaves a sustainable culture of excellence behind him. One of the things I liked about the idea of him coaching here was that even if he left after 4 or 5 years the team would be in great shape, much like LSU after Saban left.



When I lived in California, Stanford was terrible. They would lose to USC by 60-70 points. The feeling in the sports community wasn't that they were in a lull; it was widely thought that Stanford would never be competitive in football again. What has happened since is astonishing.

PurpleStuff

September 16th, 2012 at 2:34 AM ^

Stanford has had a bunch of good teams throughout its history.  They just haven't been able to keep a coach or any continuity.  John Ralston won back to back Rose Bowls in the '70's and left to coach the Denver Broncos.  Jack Christiansen had a fairly mediocre record but finished 3rd or better in the Pac 8 each of his last 4 seasons before getting fired.  Bill Walsh had two top-15 or so teams and then left for the 49ers.  Dennis Green finished 2nd in the Pac 10 in 1991 then left for the Vikings gig.  Walsh came back and had a top-10 finish a year later but only stayed 3 years and retired.  Willingham won the Pac 10 in 1999 and finished in the top-20 in 2001 before leaving for Notre Dame. 

In recent years, Stanford has really only been terrible during the five year stretch of Teevens/Harris.  That happened when they hired a guy whose most recent head coaching job had been a 11-45 stint at Tulane who had zero connection with the program that was having success with Willingham (he had been a roaming offensive assistant for Spurrier at Florida for 3 years). 

Stanford is good at every other sport and can be very good at football because they are the very best academic school in the country that participates in big time athletics.  Regular students don't choose schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, or (God forbid) Notre Dame over Stanford.  Any talented player who is a decent student and actually cares about academics is going to put them at or near the top of their list.  That is why you see them recruiting so well nationally of late.

bronxblue

September 16th, 2012 at 8:15 AM ^

Harbaugh definitely recruited well, but as noted below Stanford has been decent historically save for a couple of years in the mid-2000s.  This is the best sustained run I've seen in some time, but I also feel like the Pac-12 has been down a bit nationally and that has helped.  They recruit reasonably well and have some natural advantages other schools do not, so it doesn't surprise me that they are doing well.  Harbaugh helped to bring a good culture to the team and he deserves credit for that, but the down years at Stanford are more the outliers than the trend.

k1400

September 15th, 2012 at 11:44 PM ^

Hate USC, love seeing Kiffin lose.  But before this game I thought USC might be one of the few teams with a shot against Alabama.  Looks like it wouldn't be much of a chance.

bronxblue

September 16th, 2012 at 8:19 AM ^

I think it would be closer than people think, but I totally agree that the best college teams would be beaten convincingly by the worst NFL team.  That said, upsets do happen.  I mean, on a whole UM was WAY better than App St., and that game turned out differently.  Alabama has some legit athletes on that squad, and could make the game interesting given just how bad Weeden is at QB.  

Perkis-Size Me

September 15th, 2012 at 11:57 PM ^

As much as I love watching USC lose, this just makes an all SEC national title game that much more possible. I would not at all be surprised to see an Alabama LSU rematch of a rematch of a rematch.

DonAZ

September 16th, 2012 at 7:57 AM ^

 

Oregon, FSU, and maybe Texas have a good shot of not losing until they play Bama.

Oregon and FSU ... I'm not so sure about Texas. 

Re: Oregon ... next week's Oregon v. Arizona game is shaping up to be very interesting.  Arizona put a beating on SC State ... which is not entirely unexpected, but the box score shows domination -- 40-something first downs, good third-down efficiency, balanced passing attack.  I guess we'll see if the Wildcat win over OSU was a fluke, or an indicator of potential for this Arizona team.