The Big Game is all that Stanford has left to play for this season

In wake of Friday’s drubbing at the hands of Utah, Stanford’s football season can now officially be considered a disappointment. In a way, it was already a disappointment when they failed to beat Washington one week earlier but losing to Utah in the manner that they did was just icing on the cake of disappointment. Stanford never was in that game. By the end of the first quarter, it was clear Utah was going to win and they were going to win big. And if you put money on Utah to win by more than 11.5 points, you were sitting pretty all night long.

What’s a bit shocking to reflect on is that to start October, Stanford knocked off #3 Oregon in overtime. Things looked much more promising for the season back then. But since then, the wheels have come off. And with each passing week, things seem to be getting worse, not better.

Part of this is due to the coaching staff’s inability to put together an effective game plan, part of this is due to the players not executing in crunch time, part of this is due to bad luck, and part of this is due to injuries continuing to pile up. There’s no one thing or one person that you can point to and blame all of this on. Some of this has been within Stanford’s control and some of it has not. And yet it doesn’t really matter at this point. They are what they are: 3-6 overall and 2-5 in the Pac-12, last in the north division.

With only three games left at Oregon State, vs. Cal, and vs. Notre Dame, a trip to a bowl game seems highly unlikely for Stanford, though it is still theoretically possible. While Stanford can use a bowl game as something to look to, deep down, they have to know it’s not a realistic goal at this point. So with that being the case, what’s left for Stanford to play for? Is there anything?

Amid all of this disappointment and frustration, there is one thing that Stanford does have in front of them that can redeem this season at least a little bit while also not being out of reach: Beating Cal in The Big Game and keeping The Stanford Axe in Palo Alto.

As disappointing as Stanford’s season has been, if you look across the bay to Berkeley, things aren’t any prettier. The Golden Bears are also 3-6 overall and only .5 game better than Stanford in league play with a 2-4 Pac-12 record. One night after Stanford lost to Utah, Cal did their best to sink even lower by losing 10-3 to an Arizona team that is about as bad of a team as the Pac-12/Pac-10 has ever seen. Arizona honestly should have gone winless in league play and yet Cal found a way to giftwrap them a win. Arizona fans rushed the field in sheer jubilation, engulfing Cal in a sea of red. Things honestly can’t get more embarrassing than that.

But of course, the very fact that things have gotten to a point where we have to debate whether it’s worse to get mauled by Utah or lose by a touchdown to Arizona, proves the point that this season hasn’t gone well for Stanford. Or Cal for that matter. Both teams have found different ways to get to where they are and for each team, the only thing left that can give their seasons any sort of meaning is winning The Big Game. That’s it. Nothing else matters at this point. Whichever team wins The Big Game will at least have that to point to as something positive to close out the year while the losing team will rightfully feel like things couldn’t be any worse.