By most standards, it was one of the best seasons in Stanford football history. A 9-2 record. A top-10 Bowl Championship Series ranking. Wins over Oregon, USC, UCLA and Notre Dame. A seventh consecutive Big Game victory.
But the reward for Stanford’s impressive campaign didn’t seem to fit the résumé: a trip to the first-ever Seattle Bowl. How did the senior-laden team with the explosive offense end up in a bowl without a storied tradition (until 2001, it was known as the Oahu Bowl and held in Honolulu)?
Basically, it comes down to this: toward the end of the season, Stanford was locked in a tight race for second place in the Pac-10 with Washington and Washington State. Although the Cardinal finished with a better record than Washington, and ahead of both teams in the polls, it lost to both—and the bowl committees made their selections before the season concluded. The Holiday Bowl, expected to take the second-place finisher in the Pac-10, chose Washington. Then, the Sun Bowl selected Washington State.
Thus, at press time, Stanford was headed to the December 27 Seattle Bowl. It would face a surprisingly worthy opponent: Georgia Tech, a team with a 7-5 record making its fifth consecutive postseason appearance. Still, it was hard not to relive the losses to the Washington teams. One less turnover here or a couple more completed passes there, and Stanford could have had a hot date in Arizona at the Fiesta Bowl or even a Rose-tinted shot at the national championship. “We have a fine, fine football team that may have been, or should have been, or could have been a couple plays away from being down in Pasadena,” says head coach Tyrone Willingham.
Picked by most pundits to finish fifth in a talented Pac-10 conference, Stanford began its season with a win over Boston College, 38-22, on September 8. After a two-week break following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Cardinal returned to defeat Arizona State, 51-28, and USC, 21-16. At 3-0, Stanford was off to its best start in 15 years. But the Cardinal faced a four-game stretch against Washington State, Oregon, UCLA and Washington, a combined 18-0 at the time.
Senior running back Brian Allen’s 133 yards rushing and three touchdowns weren’t enough to overcome Washington State on October 13, and the Cardinal suffered its only home loss of the year, 45-39. But the next week, Stanford shocked then-undefeated, top-five Oregon in a thrilling 49-42 win at daunting, deafening Autzen Stadium, ending the Ducks’ 23-game, national-best home winning streak. Victory came at a price: senior quarterback Randy Fasani left the game in the first quarter with ligament damage to his knee, which would sideline him for four more games. Junior Chris Lewis stepped into his relief role ably, joining sophomore receiver Teyo Johnson to lead a 21-point fourth-quarter comeback, aided by two blocked punts.
Stanford manufactured another upset on October 27, fending off a late UCLA rally to defeat its second undefeated, top-five opponent in as many weeks, 38-28. The Cardinal catapulted to No. 6 in the BCS rankings, prompting talk of a second Rose Bowl trip in three years.
But Seattle held Stanford’s destiny, in more ways than one. In Husky Stadium on November 3, the Cardinal failed to capitalize on several scoring opportunities, losing to Washington, 42-28. In the process, junior running back Kerry Carter’s season ended with a separated shoulder and senior safety Simba Hodari sustained a severe concussion. And Stanford, winless at Washington since 1975, all but sealed its bowl fate.
Near the end of the Washington loss, an uncharacteristic grimace on Willingham’s face revealed his dashed hopes. “This [loss] does affect the things we started the season out believing that we could accomplish,” he told the San Jose Mercury News.
Wins over Arizona, 51-37, Cal, 35-28, Notre Dame, 17-13, and San Jose State, 41-14, put the Cardinal back on track to finish the season. And despite some disappointment over their postseason destination, the team members seemed proud of themselves. “We played our butts off this season,” senior defensive tackle Matt Leonard told the Mercury News. “We have nothing to be ashamed of.”
