They looked pretty good Sid. I thought they were the stronger team and deserved to win. The UCLA kicker missed a 51 yard field goal that would have sent that game into overtime also. Stanford is Pac 12 Champ and headed to the Rose Bowl.
I had a bad day so went home and slept. I woke up in time to shoot the breeze with Scott and Kes, then of course see the one thing UCLA always has (an automatic kicker) miss a FG to tie... It's been that kind of day.
:idea: This simplifies things for the 12Pac. Stanford goes to the Rose Bowl, Oregon to the Fiesta, UCLA to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and USC goes to the Toilet Bowl after Little Kiffin fired his daddy...
Goes to show you how difficult it is to beat a team 2x in a row much less in back to back weeks. Thing I really noticed is for a Pac12 Championship game Stanford Stadium appeared less than 1/2 full. When we used to have championship games the B12's were at least always sold out.
I noticed the same thing. Based on the local news here in Indy, a similar situation exists for the Big10 championship game. Several thousand (one report said 20,000) tickets remained unsold as of a couple of days ago. Re: playing a team in successive weeks. A graphic early in the game last night said that it's been done only 3 times, twice in the first decade of the 1900s and once in the 1930s.
I blame the missed UCLA FG on the snapper. The holder had to reach to his right to get the snap and he placed the ball very close to his leg. It looked like it was forcing the kicker to pull it to the left.
Possibly, but I'm not sure that Stanford has been known for selling out the stadium for its regular season games. I can't imagine that a game of this importance - in Stanford's case, a trip to the Rose Bowl at stake - would not fill the stadium at ND or Florida.
Sid Stanford is not known for it's rabid football fans, but you would have thought a few more UCLA fans might have made the trip. FWIW Stanford is the only team I can think of that when they built a new stadium or remodeled an old stadium decreased capacity by almost 20%. Says something about the fans or lack there of...
oh...and OH MY....I'm off to the golf course in Shorts and Polo shirt for a nice round! See ya later today!
Nice weather in Indy for the Big10 championship game....to be played indoors at Lucas Oil Stadium. There will be a lot of golfers here today. Not sure about the shorts and polo shirt, though.
In Stanford's defense, the host stadium wasn't known until they won last week. The weather reports this week in Nocal have been for series of storms to hit the area. Neither cheese nor caviar can keep the crackers from getting soggy in that much rain.
My thoughts are why put the pressure of a 51 yd kick in a rainstorm on the kicker. I would have liked to see them go for the first down with the time remaining. The difficult decision was which had a better chance of success, attempting a long kick or going for a first down.
That was a "perfect storm" for bad attendance. All the things you guys have mentioned combined to keep folks away. Knowing the location late, really crappy weather, and a rematch from a week earlier added together made it a hard sell.
:wink: Ummm guys you really dont understand Californians they only go to games if the weather is nice... Up north they are getting this weekend from 2 back to back storms 15 inches of rain alot of people were afraid to leave their houses.,if you have ever driven in Ca in wet weather you understand..... it has been raining down her to SO Cal since Thursday but just light rain and only heavy once in a while ..... and alot of UCLA fans did make the trip up there. I was happy to see that it is a 6 hour drive at least to get up there , not accounting for the bad weather and wet freeways and lots of accidents.
:idea: This weather phenomenon is called "El Nino" and it happens about every seven years causing major problems along the entire Pacific Coast. This week, a series of three major storms known as the "Pineapple Express" have slammed into California causing flooding, downed power lines, damaged buildings and bringing some tornadoes with them. http://www.sott.net/article/254277-Storm-waves-slam-Northern-California-causing-power-outages-and-mudslides These storms are similar to Nor'easters along the Atlantic coast. They don't really come in from Hawaii as their name suggests, but are huge Alaskan storms that come down this far with the Humbolt Current. It's been raining here since Tuesday; it's raining right now; and it's scheduled to rain until next Tuesday. So far, NoCal got hit much worse than SoCal and I'm amazed that anybody went to the game. I wouldn't have gone if the tickets were free. It was hard enough just getting home from work yesterday...