UC Davis 20, Stanford 17 – MSNBC Wire Services – MSNBC.com — It’s become obvious to me that Stanford should leave rough-and-tumble Division I-A football and go down to division 1-AA football with Harvard and other Ivy league schools. UC Davis is a division II football team hoping to advance to 1-AA and it killed Stanford. A private school like Stanford has the money but only pays its coach, for example, around $400K a year while most competitive 1-A schools pay a million or more. They really should volunteer for a lowered rank and a different league than the PAC-10. I would suggest the Western Athletic Conference. Right now there are only nine members so a tenth would make sense. It’s new rival can be San Jose State, right down the road.
STANFORD, Calif. (AP) – Jon Grant threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Blaise Smith with 8 seconds left Saturday night and UC Davis stunned Stanford 20-17 to spoil coach Walt Harris’ home debut for the Cardinal.
Stanford, like my alma mater, the Big Ten’s Michigan State, seems to be turning into a “basketball school” like Duke.
As for Stanford, they ought to start a “West Coast Ivy League”, although I don’t know who would be in it besides Stanford.
I am suprised you didn’t finish the post with:
Go Bears
Michigan State just beat Notre Dame for the 5th straight time. If you’re going to send Stanford out, why not also send Cal and Washington State?
As a UC Davis (the real farm) alumnus, may I suggest UC Davis replace Stanford’s place in the Pacific 10 Conference for football? Go Ags!
Stanford hire Walt Harris for a cheap price (compared to other College Coaches). … It would cost them too much money to hire Norm Chow. …
You seem to be forgetting history. Stanford has had some good teams in both the recent and not so recent past. Stanford has put a bunch of players into the NFL including John Elway and Jim Plunkett who both went on to win two Super Bowls. Ty Willingham put a string of good teams together at Stanford. As recently as 1999, Stanford was in the Rose Bowl. From 1991 to 2001 they went to six bowl games.
Cal is an equally hard school to Stanford and yet we don’t hear people talking about them being downgraded to Division II. People seem to forget the 80’s and 90’s when Cal was atrocious. Between 1992 and and now Stanford has a won-loss record of 71-76 By comparison, Cal over the same period is 57-82.
Lastly, UC Davis has a good football program and has for years. They have a very competitive Division II team that is on the cusp of going up to I-AA. Stanford is in a slump as they haven’t found a good coach since Willingham. Every school can’t hire a Pete Carroll. These things go in cycles and I’m sure that Stanford will eventually bounce back.
Your pov on cycles is fine and dandy.
This Cardinal have no faith in Walt Harris as a coach. … If It was not for his relationship w/ Leland and Walsh. Harris would be sucking air. @ one point, Pitts was not going to renew Harris contract.
At the end, Norm Chow went to NFL for $1 M and Harris went to Stanford for $500K. …
So much hyperbole! I’m a UC Davis alumnus, and yes, it’s quite exciting to have my team beat Stanford. However, Stanford will definitely bounce back. They have a great athletic program. As for a “West Coast Ivy League” – UC Davis would be a perfect fit. Davis has modeled itself after Stanford for many years. Like Stanford, Davis ranks quite high in most national university rankings. I think it’s about time for there to be an Ivy League tradition established on the West Coast.
UC Davis proves onces again that games are played not on paper but on the football field.