40 years ago, the most memorable play ever happened in Big Game history: The Play. You all know what happened. Mark Harmon kicked a field goal with 4 seconds left to give Stanford a 20-19 lead before Cal scored a touchdown on a kickoff return to win the game. The return involved multiple laterals and the Stanford Band coming onto the field before the play was over. The most iconic image from that play is Cal safety Kevin Moen running over Stanford trombonist Gary Tyrrell in the end zone. 25-20 Cal won in the most controversial finish in Big Game history.
To commemorate the event, Cal is unveiling a statue of Moen running over Tyrrell this weekend in front of the stadium. It's certainly an incredible play that is worthy of being memorialized at Cal forever. And in truth, Cal has the Stanford Band to thank for making that play what it was. They’re the ones that make that play live on forever.
Without wanting to take anything away from Cal’s greatest Big Game victory, it is important to acknowledge one simple fact: “The Play” should have been blown dead long before the touchdown was scored. On the third lateral of “The Play”, it’s obvious that Dwight Garner’s knee was down around midfield before he lateraled the ball off to Richard Rodgers. It’s also obvious that the fifth lateral, Mariet Ford to Kevin Moen, was in fact an illegal forward pass. Both of those plays should have rendered “The Play” dead.
As for the flags against Stanford for illegal participation, those flags were justified on the condition that Garner’s knee wasn’t in fact down. But since Garner’s knee was in fact down, “The Play” should have been blown dead right there, making the Stanford players and band members justified in rushing the field since they didn’t rush the field until AFTER the knee was down. That’s why they rushed the field in the first place. Had the refs correctly ruled Garner’s knee to be down, there would have been no need to call the flags on Stanford since the game would have been over.
What needs to be acknowledged as Cal unveils the statue this weekend is that Stanford should have won the 1982 Big Game. If instant replay were available for use, it would have been a 20-19 Stanford victory. It’s that simple.
With this all being established as fact; we now need to ask ourselves the following question: Does it matter? Yes, the knee was down. Yes, it was an illegal forward pass. But does it matter? Cal won the Big Game in 1982. The refs are the ones who were responsible for officiating the game correctly and instant replay was not an available tool for them to use.
In real time, one can see how they might have missed the knee being down and with the band being all over the field, it was tough for them to get a good read on that fifth lateral. One has to give credit to Cal for keeping “The Play” alive and not worrying about whether or not a whistle had been blown. On those grounds, Cal deserves credit for winning and finishing “The Play.”
At the end of the day, the goal is to walk out with more points than the other team when the final whistle is blown. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you did so with a bad call or two going your way. So long as the officials honestly deem you the victors, you won.
Of course, there is a super easy rebuttal to this: Without proper officiating, there would be chaos. Because there was no proper officiating on this play, chaos is what ensued. Stanford did in fact make the tackle to win the game and if we’re playing backyard, call your own fouls rules, that ends the game.
Because the officials failed to blow their whistles when they should have, chaos ensued and Stanford got robbed of winning a game that they rightfully deserved. This is why Stanford is fully within their rights to change the score on “The Axe” from 25-20 Cal to 20-19 Stanford whenever it is in their possession. You can call it a funny little tradition, but it’s a tradition that is based in empirical fact.
If a knee is down and nobody is there to see it be down, the knee is still down because God, who perceives all, perceived the knee being down. Ok, I’ll stop bringing up the metaphysics of Bishop Berkeley, who UC Berkeley is named after. I also won’t get into how while sitting in lecture for Philosophy of Perception at UC Berkeley, a tree actually fell outside our classroom. Though suffice to say, it was pretty freaking amazing.
Looking ahead to this year’s Big Game, the 125th Big Game, there is a different question we need to ask ourselves: Both teams are really bad, but does it matter? Does the fact that both teams are 3-7 diminish the meaning of this game at all? Or does it in fact heighten its meaning?
On the surface, this year’s Big Game appears to have less meaning. Both teams are bad. Neither team is playing for bowl eligibility. The result will have no impact on post-season play whatsoever. The only thing on the line is pride and tradition. That’s it.
On the flip side, that’s precisely why this year’s Big Game has even more meaning than previous Big Games. Pride and tradition are the only things on the line. There is no other shiny object in the room to distract these two teams. The only thing that matters is winning The Axe for its own sake. You could argue that’s the case with every Big Game, but in many ways, that’s amplified by both teams being so bad.
As for which team needs this win more, I think both teams need it equally. You could argue Cal needs it more since Stanford has the Notre Dame victory earlier this year, but I think the fact that they beat Notre Dame makes the need to win The Axe even greater. If Stanford can win two trophies this year, that could add a lot of meaning to their season.
I think the biggest reason why this game matters more for Cal is the game is in Berkeley. They are at home and they haven’t won a Big Game in Berkeley since 2008. You know that’s something Cal is talking about. Plus, legendary Cal announcer Joe Starkey, who was on the call 40 years ago, is retiring after this season. Cal wants to win The Axe for Starkey as much as they do for themselves. He’s been an institution up in Berkeley and they don’t want to let him down.
We can of course narrow things down even further and ask whether or not this really matters for either head coach. And if it does, for whom does it matter more? It is highly likely both David Shaw (Stanford) and Justin Wilcox (Cal) return as head coaches for their respective programs next year, so in that vein does this game really matter for them? It would be one thing if it appeared as though one of them was on the hotseat. That would make this easy. But since that appears to be off the table for this season anyways, this question becomes a bit harder to answer.
The case for why this game matters more for David Shaw is the simple fact that beating Cal would be a datapoint he can point to in showing that his team has improved from last year. Stanford got whopped in the Big Game at home last year and by getting revenge in Berkeley and bringing The Axe back home, that would show a certain degree of progress. More importantly, it would be a fourth win on the year, which would mean his team will have a better record than last year. Even if it is just by one victory and one of those victories was over Colgate, which counts but doesn’t at the same time. On top of that, it would help Shaw sell the narrative on the recruiting trail that between Cal and Stanford, Stanford is the better program. Granted he can sell that narrative off his body of work alone, but beating Cal still helps to keep that narrative fresh.
The case for why this game matters more for Justin Wilcox starts with the fact that this is the only trophy Cal plays for all year. It’s The Axe. That’s it. While Stanford has other rivalries like Notre Dame and USC that they can point to as having meaning, for Cal it’s Big Game and that’s it. This game matters more to Cal in that sense.
Another reason why this game matters more for Wilcox is he has more to prove as a coach. While the last three full seasons have been bad for Shaw (4-2 pandemic season was good, but hard to factor into the equation), he at least has some real accomplishments that are far more important than any Big Game victory. He’s won multiple Rose Bowls as a head coach. While it is true those Rose Bowls were a while back, they’re still on Shaw’s list of accomplishments and they forever will be. Wilcox has not accomplished anything even remotely close to that as a head coach at Cal and while the Cal program he took over wasn’t the same kind of program Shaw inherited from Jim Harbaugh, he hasn’t done much or anything to make it better. If Wilcox keeps The Axe in Berkeley, he’ll add to his resume that he’s the one Cal coach who has been able to beat Stanford in recent memory. And given how sparse his resume is, he needs all the resume polishing he can get.
So to sum this all up, both past and present, I think the following statements are true: Yes, it matters that the knee was down and that the fifth lateral was an illegal forward lateral. Yes, the Big Game matters this year even though both teams are having bad seasons.
We must be able to agree that proper and correct officiating matters. Without proper and correct officiating, who can say they’ve truly won anything? We must also be able to agree that rivalries matter independent of the records of the teams playing in the game. As Stanford senior Drake Nugent said this week, Big Game is a season in itself.
To connect with CardinalSportsReport.com on Facebook and Twitter, click here.
To connect with Ben Parker on Facebook and Twitter, click here.
