Football preview

Friday, October 31, 1997

Football preview

By Mark Dittmer

Daily Bruin Staff

This all seems very familiar.

Stanford plays UCLA in an early November contest, with its
season on the line. The Cardinal enters the game fresh off
consecutive losses, needing a win over the Bruins to turn its
season around.

It’s the storyline this week, as the No. 12 Bruins (6-2, 4-1
Pac-10) visit Stanford Saturday. And it was the storyline last
year, when a struggling Stanford squad came to the Rose Bowl in
1996, seemingly on its way to the cellar of the Pac-10.

However, when Saturday’s game is over, UCLA hopes to have
eradicated any feeling of familiarity.

"Last year when they came to the Rose Bowl, they ended up
leaving with a 21-20 win," UCLA head coach Bob Toledo said.
"Hopefully it won’t be deja vu."

Stanford (4-3, 2-2), meanwhile, is hoping its entire November
feels like deja vu.

Last year, Stanford staggered into the month with a 2-5 record,
having been slaughtered by Arizona State in its last October
contest.

But the Cardinal wouldn’t lose again. It went on to win its last
four regular-season games, finish third in the Pac-10 with a 6-5
overall record, qualify for the Sun Bowl and proceed to crush
Michigan State in the New Year’s Eve contest, 38-0.

If it hadn’t been for its one-point victory over UCLA on Nov. 2
of last year, none of that would have happened. The Cardinal would
have finished the season 5-6 at best, and the Bruins may have taken
Stanford’s Sun Bowl spot.

"I don’t think you judge success until you get to the end of the
journey," Stanford head coach Tyrone Willingham said. "We’ve got
four more games to go, four more very critical games for us."

Willingham said that on Monday, though he just as easily could
have said it last year. For the second straight year, Willingham is
under pressure heading into the month of November.

While this year’s Cardinal is in better shape than it was last
year at this point, the team also faces heightened expectations.
Stanford opened the season ranked 17th in the nation, the
second-highest ranking for a Pac-10 team. Early on, the Cardinal
was living up to its billing, winning four of its first five,
including a 33-15 romp over Notre Dame.

"They were picked to be a contender for the championship, along
with Washington," Toledo said. "Rightfully so, because they’ve got
a lot of talent."

It’s talent that first began to surface when the Cardinal began
its win streak with the win over the Bruins last year. Chad
Hutchinson, who had just won the starting spot earlier that year
and who had performed erratically, began in the latter half of the
season to assert himself as one of the nation’s most promising
quarterbacks.

Against UCLA, he completed 22 of 32 passes for 268 yards and two
touchdowns, including a game-winning 10-yard pass to receiver Brian
Manning with 58 seconds to play.

Receiver Troy Walters was sixth on the team in catches going
into that game, in which he caught eight passes for 114 yards and a
touchdown. Since then he has blossomed into a star who this year is
second in the conference in receptions.

Defensive end Kailee Wong and linebacker Chris Draft also
emerged, and Stanford’s five-game win streak equated to a hot start
this year.

Then came a loss to the struggling Arizona Wildcats (3-5, 1-4),
the week before the Pac-10 champion Arizona State Sun Devils were
to pay the Cardinal a visit. The Devils whipped Stanford 31-14.

"Championships are won in November," Toledo said. "This
November’s going to be very, very exciting for all the fans and all
the players."

Toledo hopes that this year it is UCLA that owns November, not
Stanford. And what better date to stake claims to that ownership
than Nov. 1, against Stanford, the reigning champions of
November?