Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The Stanford Cardinal already won the Rose Bowl, so they should just skip bowl season and stay home. It’s not going to get any better.
No, Stanford didn’t win the actual Rose Bowl (remember the loss to Michigan State?), but the Cardinal did win a huge game in the Rose Bowl. By mauling UCLA in Pasadena on the final day of the regular season, the Cardinal knocked the Bruins out of the Pac-12 South title as well as CFB Playoff/New Year’s Six contention. The Cardinal would do well to consider declining an invitation to one of the second-tier (and that’s being generous) bowl games that will be an option.
While that’s not likely to happen these days, if there’s one team that would actually turn down a bowl invitation, it’s the Stanford Cardinal. That shouldn’t be taken as an insult. It should be taken as a compliment to what the Cardinal football program has become in recent years. It’s a Pac-12 champion, it’s a New Year’s Day player and it’s a team that plays good football. That’s not what happened this season.
Let’s say you’re Stanford, so would you rather end your season with a complete-game Rose Bowl victory over UCLA, or would you rather spend your holiday season at a second-tier bowl game? Get this: it’s a stretch that Stanford would get picked for the Foster Farms Bowl. That game is at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Therefore, right in Palo Alto’s backyard. You get me? The Foster Farms Bowl is a best-case scenario for the Cardinal.
If both Arizona and Oregon get selected for the CFB Playoff/New Year’s Six bowls, and I think they will, then every Pac-12 Bowl tie-in would be able to get a team, since there are eight bowl-eligible teams and seven games to fill. Then, I guess Stanford wouldn’t be able to turn down a bowl invitation.
But I suspect that if the Cardinal didn’t have a bowl game obligation, Stanford would rather end the season with a Rose Bowl win than possibly losing the Cactus Bowl to Texas or West Virginia. Even if the Cardinal win the game, it certainly wouldn’t make the already-lost 2014 season feel any better.
Alex Drude is a Pac-12 writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Alex_Drude. “Like” him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google+.
