SF Chronicle: Ray Ratto's Look at the Big Game

Cal (6-5, 3-5 Pac-10) at Stanford (3-8, 2-6), 4 p.m. Saturday on Versus, 810, 1050

A lot on the line for two seasons gone awry

Ahh, yes, the Big Game. The pomp! The pageantry! The marching bands! The tradition! The devoted alumni of each school yearning to breathe free and fulfilled, or in some cases, simply to breathe! Yes, the Big Game. One hundred ten years of exciting football, except when it's rugby, and except when it's not very exciting.  This would seem to be one of those years when rugby might be more exciting. Both teams have remarkable momentum - which is to say the gravitational force that is generated from being in full plummet - because of each team having lost five of its previous six games. Such a thing has happened only twice since Franklin Roosevelt could dance, in 1939 and again in 1997, and both the Californii and Stanfords are trying to re-establish the glory days of, well, October, with Saturday's game. You remember October? Cal was 5-0 and ranked first in the nation for about an hour. And Stanford had just polished off an underinspired and surprisingly outplayed USC team. Those were indeed good times.

Since then? Well, er, uhh, ummm ... oh, damn. Two wins (Washington State and Arizona, aggregate record 10-13, total margin of the victories, four points) and 10 losses (two Oregon States, two Washington States, Washington, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, Arizona State and TCU). Cal's days as a ranked team are well over, and Stanford has lost almost all its momentum since beating the Trojans on Oct. 6. In other words, while you go on about the departing seniors, the alums who live for this game above all others, and the general nostalgia of Bob Murphy's last game behind the Stanford mike (and we continue to offer him $100 if he'll curse the Bears on air as a going-away gift to the rivalry), this game actually matters just as much for everyone coming back to play and coach next year.

Jeff "My Play List Has a Zip Code" Tedford needs the win to get the Bears into a bowl game, even if it is "only" the Emerald Bowl. He and the returners need to leave this bizarre season on an up-note, if only to rinse out the taste of a year that promised much and delivered sixth place. In some college towns we know, Tedford would be a candidate for a new job because he wouldn't have his old one anymore.  On the other hand, there's Stanford, and first-year head coach Wanderin' Jimmy Harbaugh. Other than his occasional postgame walkabouts, in which he does his radio show and then bolts for the first open door he can find, he and the fellows have had enough strange in this year to cover the next decade.

The win over USC speaks for itself and stands on its own ... almost. As six-touchdown underdogs with two wins in two years and a backup sophomore quarterback (Tavita Pritchard) making his starting debut, the Cardinal's victory over the second-ranked Trojans in L.A. was one of the three most extraordinary events of an extraordinary year. It set the nation on its ear and got Stanford more good pub than any football-related event since the '00 Rose Bowl, and perhaps since the first Bill Walsh era.  Then came the loss to TCU, and after a one-point win over the fitful Arizonas, more losses, each more grisly than the last. Oregon State, the two Washingtons and the revoting Notre Dame performance, in which even the Irish played so badly that Touchdown Jesus went Episcopalian. Suddenly, the win over SC, which we all thought would last Harbaugh a lifetime, seems about a lifetime ago.

Wanderin' Jim speaks of changing the culture at Stanford, but the culture at Stanford is five consecutive Big Game losses and a 19-48 aggregate record over that spread. The culture got some change, but it needs a pick-me-up going into a vital offseason.  "The guys who are playing Saturday, that's who this game is for," Harbaugh said, trying to take the deliberately short view. "Next year will be next year." He also admitted, in so many words, that Big Games don't merely float into the ether. "I can't say winning Saturday wouldn't have a very positive impact for us (going into '08)," he said. "But it's a big game for a lot of reasons, and not just for what it means for us next year."

Tedford is no less circumspect about the Big Game's enduring value, especially as a public-relations tool for the already committed. But he also knows that this year was more of a drag than a celebration, and that considerable changes have to take place during the offseason to wipe out the taste of a year that either disappointed or dumbfounded. "I don't know what the Big Game does for us over the summer," he said, "but I know how important it is to win it." He does not know how damaging it is to lose one, though, because he hasn't. And a loss Saturday atop the mess of the last two months would be hard chewing not only for any old, aging or even mostly vibrant Blue, but for himself and his operation. Cal football has structural issue to confront, and though a Big Game win might not change that agenda, a Big Game loss would press its importance.

Thus, as the game approaches - 4 p.m. on Versus - save a thought not only for those who will not play for Stanford or Cal again, but the ones who come back. There is bad karma to be overcome, and someone is going to have to do it Saturday, or pay full retail for the failure.