Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl: My Favorite Cardinal Bowl Memory

Many Stanford football fans, when asked about their favorite Cardinal bowl games, will answer one of two ways:

1. The 2011 Orange Bowl, where Stanford rolled a good Va Tech team by four touchdowns, 40-12, behind a sensational performance by quarterback Andrew Luck. 

2. The 1971 and 1972 Rose Bowls, where underdog Stanford teams upset Big Ten champions Ohio State and Michigan. 

Not me.

My favorite Stanford bowl game was actually not a victory for the Cardinal. The 2000 Rose Bowl, a 17-9 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers, was Stanford’s first New Year’s appearance in Pasadena since 1972 and helped lay the foundation for the Cardinal’s recent national success. 

After the 1972 Rose Bowl upset over Michigan, Stanford endured a nearly three-decade Rose Bowl drought. During an 18-year period from 1981 to 1998, Stanford had just five winning seasons, one of the poorer records in FBS. 

Then in 1999, behind quarterback Todd Husak (now the color commentator for Stanford football radio broadcasts) and Biletnikoff Award winning wideout Troy Walters, the Cardinal won its first outright Pac-10 conference title ever. 

Coached by Tyrone Willingham, Stanford defeated USC, UCLA, ASU and Cal en route to a 7-1 conference record, good enough for sole possession of first place and the coveted Rose Bowl berth. 

The Rose Bowl on New Year's Day of 2000 was by some accounts, the largest gathering of Stanford alumni ever. Cardinal fans who had suffered through the 1980s and most of the 1990s celebrated the program’s return to the national spotlight. 

Stanford fans further exulted in the first half, as the underdog Cardinal took a 9-3 lead and held Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne to only 46 rushing yards. Alas, Dayne broke off a 64-yard run on the second play after halftime and scored two plays later. 

Wisconsin went on to win 17-9, as Dayne was finished with 200 yards rushing. But Stanford and its fans realized that they could belong again among college football’s elite. 

Coach Willingham led Stanford to another fine season in 2001, with a 9-3 record and a No.16 final ranking. 

Willingham then bolted The Farm for Notre Dame, and Stanford’s next two coaches, Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris, recruited well but could not replicate Willingham’s success on Saturdays.

The Cardinal would not be a winner again until Jim Harbaugh became head coach in 2007.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Coach Harbaugh impressed upon his players that Stanford could indeed compete at a national level—why, just a few years earlier, the Cardinal had played in the 2000 Rose Bowl.

Harbaugh changed the culture, coach David Shaw has picked up where Harbaugh left off, and the fourth-ranked Cardinal have gone 31-6 with Andrew Luck as its starting quarterback.

Monday’s Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State will be Stanford’s second straight BCS Bowl.

Cardinal fans hope for a win over the Cowboys and for an NCG in the future, or at the least, another visit to the Rose Bowl.