This is the
101st Clardy’s Corner for The Bootleg. But before I do a little reflecting
on the previous 100 Corners, I gotta get something off my chest.
I like Worrell Williams. I enjoy
watching him on the field. I actually had an enjoyable conversation with
him a few weeks ago after the Bears beat Oregon, and he seemed
like a good, reasonable kid. Then I saw his post-Big Game quote.
"I'm not one to be
big-headed or anything like that, but we don't belong on the same
field as those guys. We have way more athletes than those guys, and
we're more fundamentally sound than those guys. We're better than those guys.”
My immediate response
to that quote had something to do with bovine feces and self-copulation.
You’re going to have a hell of a time convincing me that
Stanford actually lost to a better team last week. To me, cal could only win that game if two things happened. One,
Stanford would need to hand them the game. Turnovers, penalties, missed opportunities, whatever. The Bears did
not strike me as a team that could take control against Stanford
by themselves. Two, cal would have to trick Stanford. Not just with misdirection,
but with gadgets and gimmicks. If cal plays Stanford straight-up, they lose.
Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened.
I’ll never have a problem if Stanford
loses to a team that plays them straight-up. That’s how U$C beat
the Cardinal. Arizona State, too. When Oregon withstood Stanford’s comeback last year and
beat the Cardinal by doing what they do best, I respected that.
But I can’t respect a
team that has Stanford hand them the game on a silver platter,
then decides to taunt the Cardinal by breaking out every trick play in
the book. There was no honor in how cal won that game.
I’ll agree with Williams in this
respect: in the first half, it didn’t look like cal belonged on the same field as
Stanford. The Cardinal were clearly better. Except when they were missing a
field goal. Or fumbling. Or getting a penalty called on the coaching staff.
Or missing a tackle that would have gone for a major loss.
If this year’s Stanford
team plays this year’s cal team ten times on a neutral site,
Stanford wins five games. At least. Does cal have better individual athletes? Sure.
But are they the better team? No. Not to me, they aren’t.
If they were as good as they think they are, if
they were truly the better team, they would have controlled the game from start to finish.
But the way they won that game leaves a whole lot of
doubt in my mind. Their players can think otherwise, and their fans can
act like they’re going to the Rose Bowl, but I know better.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way…
101 Corners. Wow. And they said it
wouldn’t last! In a lot of ways, I can’t believe these Corners
are wrapping up their seventh season of existence. Obviously, a lot of things
have changed since the first Corner was posted on September 4, 2002.
We’ve covered a lot
of ground. We’ve seen some good wins. We’ve commiserated after a few
too many losses. We’ve traded jabs on the message boards and in the
e-mails. And I think we’ve had a little fun along the way.
My only goal with these Corners is to get people to
think about and react to the Stanford Football product, and to do it with the intelligent irreverence that is a Stanford
trademark. When I lived in the Bay Area, that often meant taking readers behind the curtain
a little bit and looking at the program from the inside. Since
I began writing these Corners from the East Coast, that now often means
placing events within Stanford Football in a larger scheme, a bigger picture.
That was the only goal of these
weekly missives. I remember someone posting on the BootBoard Plus a few years ago that these
Corners should be “opinion-makers”. I was flattered that someone felt there should
be a higher calling to these Corners, but I never, ever saw it
that way. These Corners were meant to share opinions, not shape them.
If people agree with the opinions I share, great. If people don’t, that’s fine too.
If people do indeed have their opinions shaped by these Corners, well, okay. It may be
a result, but it’s definitely not the intent. I’m just calling things
as I see them, even when I don’t like what I’m seeing. Or
calling. Do you think I like giving U$C props almost every week?
If I’m doing my job
right, I’m bringing you information like Peter King, framing it with a little pop culture like
Bill Simmons, and putting my own twist on it all. Sometimes it
worked. Other times, not so much. But I’d like to think that it
worked a whole heck of a lot more times than it didn’t.
So here we are at Corner number
101. Will there be a number 102? Honestly, right now, I don’t
know. Hell, I didn’t know if there would be anything after number 56,
which is where we stood at the end of the 2005 season.
At that time, I had just moved to Connecticut from the Bay Area. Writing these Corners from long
distance took some getting used to, and I was having trouble reconciling not being able to
follow the program as closely as I had been. It was so
tough that once the season was finished, I put my chances of returning
for the 2006 season at 20-80. Of course, you know the result.
I’ll admit that by the end of each season, I’m
ready to step away from football for a while. A lot of coaches go through this,
too. I wouldn’t call it burnout, but stepping back for a little
bit, to me, seems like a good way to avoid burnout. So right
now, quite honestly, isn’t the time to ask about Corners for 2009.
But whether there is a 102nd Corner or not, I need to
thank a bunch of folks. Obviously it all starts with Lars and Jim, whom I’ve
known and collaborated with for 12 years now. Thank you for everything…and I’m sorry for holding up the last
bus at Notre Dame! Thanks to Daniel Novinson for all of his help this season…if that
whole public health and service thing doesn’t get in the way, you’ve
got a great future in the journalism business! Thank you as well to
Carridine and Mike Eubanks, two of the most awesome people I know.
A huge thanks to the players and coaches, some of whom I’ve come in
contact with outside the playing field and locker room. These guys bleed,
sweat, cry, and puke…all so we can have something to do for three
hours on Saturdays and talk about for the rest of the week.
As always, the biggest thanks goes out to you for
supporting these Corners, whether to drop an e-mail to the Inbox, to call me out on
the message boards, or just to simply read which random thoughts went into the grab bag
that week. Hopefully these Corners make you think a little bit about
something you hadn’t considered before. Hopefully they make you laugh a little bit.
Above all, hopefully they give you reasons to keep being a Cardinalmaniac.
101 Corners are now in the book. How many more?
Who knows? But I do know this…if you’re a Cardinalmaniac, you should feel
proud to be a part of the greatest University on the planet.
Go Card!
********** ********** **********
Have you ever wondered what my favorite Corners have been over
the years? Wonder no more. Here are my favorite five. Okay, six…
6. Corner
#23 (November 5, 2003) When he posted it, Mike
Eubanks called it the funniest Clardy’s Corner yet. That might still be true
five years later!
5. Corner
#46 (September 21, 2005) Sorting through the
aftermath of the loss to UC Davis. I still have problems comprehending what
happened that night…
4. Corner
#35 (October 13, 2004) I just liked how this one
read. A little game analysis, a little opinion, and a simple theme to wrap it
all together.
3. Corner
#43 (January 7, 2005) From a pure commentary
standpoint, this might actually be the best Corner. And, sadly, much of it still
applies almost four years later.
2. Corner
#18 (October 1, 2003) The trick every columnist
faces is to find unique, different ways to frame their opinions and
perspectives. I think this was the first Corner to truly achieve
that.
1. Corner
#67 (November 8, 2006)
Simply
put, I wish all of my Corners turned out like this one.
********** ********** **********
RANDOM PAC-10 THOUGHTS
Something tells me BeaverFan saw
his whole season flash before his face when he saw Jacquizz Rodgers
heading to the locker room early in that Arizona game. Big gut-check win
for those guys on the road, and without their most important player…
Since they’ve beaten an FBS opponent, I can talk
about the Washington State Cougars now. What a win for those guys. By all accounts, Paul Wulff is a good coach and a good man who walked into
a bad situation that got worse by the day. Here’s hoping for better
days for Wulff and that program soon. Just not at Stanford’s expense…
Oh by the way, the Stanford Daily Updates (which of
course you can hear weekdays at 7:30p on KTRB AM 860) are now
available on iTunes! No Updates until Monday, so we’ll see you then…
Not a Pac-10 thought, but…I couldn’t
figure out where all the stuff about Charlie Weis being on the hot seat was coming from earlier this month. Now, if you’re
going to put him on the hot seat (which I still think is foolish), this is
the week to do it. Syracuse? Come on. That’s shameful. However, it’s
nowhere near as shameful as the Irish fans who threw snowballs at their
own players after the game. Actually, that’s not shameful. That’s flat-out disgraceful…
Not a Pac-10 thought, but…
when I saw the
injured Dolphin player down on the turf and obscured by trainers during
the New England-Miami game on Sunday, I said to myself, “please don’t let
it be Greg Camarillo.” It was. Knee injury. Done for the season…
Not a Pac-10 thought, but…
have a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend! And again, don’t drink
and drive. If you do, you’re stupid. That’s all I can say…
********** ********** ***********
PAC-10 PICKS
UCLA @ Arizona State. Seriously? One of
these teams can still go to a bowl? And Stanford can’t? Ugh. I
like Arizona State by 12.
Oregon @ Oregon State. Sure, the
Beavers could use Jacquizz Rodgers. But don’t forget about Sammie Stroughter,
James Rodgers, and an underrated defense. Roses, anyone? I like Oregon
State by 9.
And since we also have some games on December 6, I’ll
pick cal to beat and cover against Washington, U$C
to beat and cover against UCLA, and Arizona
to beat but not cover against Arizona State.
Last week: 1-1 (straight-up), 2-0
(ATS).
This year: 26-5 (straight-up), 20-11 (ATS).
Last year:
26-10 (straight-up), 20-15-1 (ATS).
********** ********** **********
Troy Clardy hosts the Stanford Daily Update, airing
every weekday at 7:30p on Cardinal Sports Network flagship radio station KTRB
(860 AM) in San Francisco, and available in podcast form at gostanford.com.
Clardy’s Corner appears Wednesdays on TheBootleg.com.
You can also check him out online at TroyClardy.com.
Are you fully subscribed to
The
Bootleg
? If not, then you are missing out on all the top
Cardinal coverage we provide daily on our website. Sign up today for the biggest
and best in Stanford sports coverage with
TheBootleg.com
(sign-up
)!