#8 Stanford

Palo Alto, CA

Stanford Stadium November 7, 2013 Stanford 26 – Oregon 20 (ESPN Recap)

In the Bay Area for work and swung a hot date of Caitlin C for the Thursday night Top-5 throwdown between a pair of recent PAC 12 nemeses. Mariota is the man and I wanted the #3 Ducks to win, but they spotted #5 Stanford 23 points and only played good football for Q4. Oregon rattled off 20 unanswered and was an onsides kick recovery (pictured) away from having the ball down 6 with 1:45 left, in which they for sure would have scored and won, but alas, the Tree took home the W. Steady steady overdose of Tyler Gaffney (45 carries!!!) was the solution for Stanford. It was an offensive line exhibition of 3-5 yards every carry, grinding out the clock, and imposing will on 3rd and short all game. I didn’t love it.

Probably most disappointing, other than the steep ML loss I took on the Ducks, was MM’s 6 carries for a loss of 16 yards and De’Anthony Thomas having no explosive plays.

Took the BART all the way back into SF which was cool.

The fans at Stanford were unsurprisingly very tame considering the magnitude of the game they were watching. Everyone looked…smart. Lots of faculty, staff, and tech community in the crowd.

The Stanford Cardinal mascot is a Christmas tree.