#8 - Shane Vereen TD Run against MSU
#7 - Best Bush Run against Washington.
#4 - Rudy Carpenter takes a ride on the Pain Train.
If you missed last week's posts, you missed discussion of Coach Tedford's play-calling, the Cal Coach's Tour (Part I and Part II), and Cal spirit in exotic locales.
We continue our countdown of the Top 10 Football Moments of 2008 with #2:
2. Fans rush the field after the Big Game
Avinash: Best rushing the field moments in the Tedford era...
TwistNHook: I'll sprinkle my photos/videos from the event throughout this post. You can find their original home here.
TwistNHook: Firstly, where is Furd 2008 on that list? That's what this post is ostensibly about. How did you get into Cal if you can't even read a simple prompt?!?!
Secondly, it reads more like this:
Furd 2002
USC 2003
OTHER GAMES OF LESSER INTEREST
Also, last on that list should be Furd 2006.
Avinash: I wasn't around for Furd 2002. I just assume beating a top 5 team in triple overtime trumps all.
TwistNHook: When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. And I don't need any more help.
"You had to be there" is always the currency of people who ply their trade in terrible, non-sensical jokes. But here, it is relevant. Completely and totally relevant.
Avinash: I remember Tennessee 2007 being the silliest thing ever. Took them five minutes to get going after the game wrapped up, and even then it was a very sparse thing, more like "how can I get Desean's autograph?"
Furd 2008 was more organic, but then again we'd just lost to them and witnessed their horrific mosh pit of rushing the field. The Force needed to be balanced.
HydroTech: Well, 02 and 03 was a long time ago, so I don't have the clearest of memory. However, I do think that I, unfortunately, will have to agree with Twist that rushing the field in 02 Big Game game > 03 USC triple OT win.
02 Big Game was absolute madness... even before the game ended people were on the field. It took like 90 minutes after the game until you could actually see the field because everyone was still on it toting around the field goal posts. It was madness like i've never seen before.
TwistNHook: Avinash, were you at Big Game 2006? That was, by far, the worst Rushing the Field Ive seen. Firstly, this was before new Stanford Stadium. So, Cal and Stanford respected the season tickets of the other. So, Cal put all the Stanford season ticket holders in the young alum section and moved us to the tippy top part of like the Gold Zone. Very odd. But it took me like 20 minutes to make my way through the crowd to the field.
Of course, by the time I got there most of the crazyness, if it could be called that, was finished. People didnt really take to rushing the field quickly. It was more like they sauntered the field. Ambled the field. Meandered the field. It was a slow process. Seemingly more like "Ok, well, we just beat Stanford for the 5th straight year, ho hum, I guess we should rush the field."
But that was terrible. Tennessee 2007 was infinity times better.
HydroTech: I think this was one of those things where you don't know what you got until you've lost it. Because Cal had destroyed the Furd from 2002-2006 (5 straight years), the players didn't think Big Game and winning The Axe was a big deal. And then they lost Big Game and The Axe in 2007. That's when it all was very real - the shame, and the humiliation of being defeated by a lesser opponent. So that made 2008 that much bigger. It made winning 2008 seem like 2002 again, when Cal had just beat Stanfurd after losing to them 7 straight years.
Yellow Fever: Maybe this goes back to what we were discussing on the blog a few days ago, but growing up in a different generation of Cal fans and not being in Berkeley, I can't say I was all that excited to watch the team beat Stanford. Yeah, we'd lost the year before, but I kind of shrugged that loss off too because in the grand scheme of things, the team was already mired in a huge freefall. Who cares that we lost to Stanford? That Oregon State loss shattered my hopes for a number one ranking and caused me to sulk for hours. The loss to Stanford just made me crack open another beer. Viewed in that light, beating Stanford last year didn't mean that much to me, because, well, we were supposed to. The game in 2007 was the outlier, not last year's. So no, it wasn't all that exciting to me.
TwistNHook: But I think 2007 sort of reconfigured those type of Cal fans to start hating Stanford again. I mean OK, fair enough, you didnt live through 7 years in the wilderness like us. Nonetheless, I'd like to think 2007 made 2008 that much sweeter. Perhaps not, though.
Avinash: They haven't been to a bowl game in the Tedford era, have they? It's just not the same if your rival blows.
I think if we lost a Big Game at home...that would turn the tide. Although a game at the Furd is technically a home game.
HydroTech: I don't think a game at Furd is technically a home game since they limit how many Cal fans can purchase tickets now.
Aviansh: They could put a hundred seat limit and it'd still outnumber the true Furd fans in the crowd.
Ragnarok: Well, in 2005, with Cal fans outnumbering Stanford fans in their own yard by a wide margin, it was pretty much a home game. With the seat limit in 2007? It was probably about 50/50.
In any case, the 2007 was a disaster of epic proportions. Tom Holmoe may not have been a very good coach, but his teams fought like hell against Stanford, which was a damn sight better than the sorry effort put forth by our Bears the last time they visited The Farm. I can handle losing to USC, but if there was a Cal fan watching that game in '07 that wasn't ashamed to hand over The Axe to Stanford, I don't want to know them.
Avinash: I'm guessing Holmoe era Bears people will have much more Furd hate than Tedford era people. For the young ones like me, it's great to beat them because they're our 'rival', but unless Cal and Furd are both competitive the antagonism isn't really there. It'll probably get bigger for us the older we get.
TwistNHook: Well, we didn't really discuss the actual rushing of the field, per se (although hopefully some of photos/videos help), but more a discussion of it in regards to other field-rushings. What are your thoughts and feelings on this Cal football moment?