Saket Vora

We won the Big Game!  After five years of losing to Cal, our seniors played a great game and reclaimed the Stanford Axe. The experience ranks among my top 3 sports experiences.

I met up with Nader and a friend of his in the VLF group, Morris Cohen. Morris has been at Stanford since 2000; he did his B.S. here, started doing research in the VLF group when he was a junior, and then stayed on for his Master’s and Ph.D in the same group. He has traveled to all 7 continents for VLF group field research, and Nader says he’s got more street cred in the VLF group that even some new professors. He’ll be getting his Ph.D this spring.

We headed to the stadium  early, getting there about 1.5 hours before gametime. Morris found some good seats in the Red Zone, which is our student section. We were ~40 yard line. Later, Praj (another VLF group member) joined us. Each band did a mini pre-game show. The Cal band dressed in their trim fancy uniforms formed a perfect line at one endzone, then expertly started to march across the field, the line morphing into a triangle as they got farther down. The Stanford’s band response? A ragged line with many players trying to jump the gun, until finally the drum major (dressed in a full body alligator costume with a  teddy bear between its teeth) raised his baton and the band stormed across the field. The trombones wrapped foil around their slides to form swords, and were dressed only in boxers with a red cape and silver helmets — a 300 homage. The trumpets were dressed in Islamic Jihad black outfits with a red headband, while the flute section was dressed in full body burqas. We also randomly had a two-person camel costume. One drummer was walking around carrying a yellow “Slippery When Wet’ sign and hitting it with drumsticks, while the other hoisted an empty keg. Anything goes in the Stanford Band!

Anyway. The stadium was packed and the Red Zone was loud.  We played very well, except for letting the Cal rushing game tear us up. Our secondary was outstanding, and we had several excellent blitzes — clearly rattling the Cal QB by the third and fourth quarter. Cal played a dirty game — 120 some penalty yards compared to just 30 on Stanford. They had multiple dead-ball personal fouls and defensive pass interference calls. We had an awesome stop at around the 4 minute mark in the 4th, leading 20-13. As we marched down the field, with about 2:30 left we fumbled and Cal recovered. They ended up taking two good shots at the endzone, but the same receiver missed both catches. Another good first down for Stanford we had it in the bag. The student section was going nuts, screaming “We’ve got the Axe! We’ve got the Axe!” We started crowding the stairways with 1:30 left, and laughed at the signs being displayed “Please do not run onto the field.”  We rushed down onto the field and cheered with the band and the players. Stanford’s President John Hennessy was down there too, and Morris and I gave him a high-five. The players led the charge and reclaimed the Axe, which is mounted on a plaque with all the Big Game scores on it. For the seniors, this was the first time they had held the Axe.

After the game I joined Morris, Nader, and five other VLF group lab mates and a couple of their friends for dinner on California Avenue. We then went to Praj and Daniel’s house (close to California Ave) to hang out and watch a movie. They’ve got a sweet house.

Mike was giving me updates throughout the night — and what a night for college football! #1 and #2 both lost, throwing the BCS into complete disarray.  Both of us grimace at the fact that Ohio State is just assumed a #1 pick: their conference was a joke this year, they never played anyone ranked in the top 20, and they haven’t played football for like 3 weeks. Both Oklahoma and LSU played yesterday, and LSU has played seven teams in the top 20, losing to only one of them in OT. Oklahoma has played 3 ranked teams, including beating the #1 team by 21 points yesterday. I’m not trying to hate on OSU (sorry Lei), but if we’re trying to pick the #1 and #2 best teams in the country, it’s simply inexplicable that OSU is still in consideration. Sure, they are the only one-loss team in the country. But Hawaii is the only team that is undefeated, and yet they get no respect cause of their weak strength of schedule. Hypocrisy? My dream final would be LSU vs Hawaii, but more realistically LSU-Oklahoma.

During the Big Game, the intense rivalry between Stanford and Cal is clearly seen. Stanford has special cheers for when they play Cal (”SAFETY SCHOOL! SAFETY SCHOOL!”), and the vitriol is biting. I’d say the audience was 1/3rd Cal fans.

Anyway, awesome day and great experience.  Go Cardinal!