November 09, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

It's win or else for Cardinal

by Rick Eymer

The Stanford football team remains a disappointment in a bottom-line world with three games left on the schedule. Cardinal coach Walt Harris, who turns 59 on Wednesday, set high standards for the program when he took over after his successful stint at Pittsburgh and his team isn't living up to them just yet.

Stanford, which sustained a 51-21 setback to host USC on Saturday night, may yet live up to those expectations and it could happen in the next three weeks. The Cardinal (3-3, 4-4) travel to Corvallis for an important - and winnable - game against Oregon State (3-3, 5-4) on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

"It's easy to rationalize in the mind that we lost to a good team but every loss is hard," Harris said. "I'm not pleased with any of it. We have to step up to the level of competition."

Both teams need a victory if they want to retain their dreams of playing in a bowl game. The Beavers have Stanford and Oregon remaining on their schedule and a win this weekend would secure their place in the postseason.

Stanford has home games against California and nationally-ranked Notre Dame on its schedule following its trip to remodeled Reser Stadium. A win over Oregon State would certainly put the Cardinal in a nice position to make the postseason and give the Big Game some real meaning.

"Coach Harris calls it our three-game season and we're trying to go undefeated," Redshirt junior free safety Trevor Hooper said. "Our goal is to become bowl eligible and everything we do is geared toward that."

How to access Stanford's season after eight games? Well, given that the loss to UC Davis in week two will remain forever a thorn in Stanford's side should it fail to record a winning season, it's not that bad.

Stanford has also lost several of its best athletes - Casey Carroll, Evan Moore, Anthony Kimble, Brian Head, Michael Okwo and Mark Bradford among them - for a significant time and that hasn't helped.

The year has gone as well as it has due, in part, to the obvious maturity and development of quarterback Trent Edwards, who now seems to fit well into Harris' complicated offensive structure.

"He gave us a chance," Harris said. "He battled to the level that the USC players battled. He got hammered and he got up and came back."

Edwards was knocked out of the game once, and then left for good late in the game.

Menlo-Atherton High grad T.C. Ostrander saw his first extensive action since the Aggies contest.

"I was excited to see T.C. go into the game," Harris said. "After that rough start he came back. He showed up to work every day and I thought he did very well as a quarterback and in trying to execute our system. He showed he's an athlete in the pocket and that he's a tough guy."

The Cardinal suffered its worst two losses of the season to the first and second place teams in the Pac-10, both nationally-ranked and headed to prestige bowl games. Stanford also gave another of the top teams in the conference a scare before losing on the game's final play.

Stanford has to be impressed with its wins over Arizona State and Arizona too, especially in the aftermath of the Wildcats' stunning win over UCLA last weekend.

None of it is good enough, though, without solid efforts the remainder of the season.

"I don't think our sights are high enough," Harris said. "We have to create competition by recruiting better and that's our goal. At a place like (USC), a guy messes up and he might not see the field for a couple of weeks. A guy messes up here, he still plays. Depth is a problem for us; numbers are a problem for us. We're not deep and we don't have enough. We have good football players, just not a lot of them."

So what can we glean from the loss to USC? First and foremost is that the Cardinal learned that making mistakes against the best team in the universe is tantamount to gridiron suicide.

USC not only is one of the most talented teams in the nation, it also plays with a self-assurance and belief in its system. The Trojans take the field knowing they will win; Stanford takes the field hoping to play well enough to compete.

"We ran into a team which player for player has superior personnel," Harris said. "And we didn't play like we had to play in order to have a chance. The (five) turnovers were disappointing and disheartening. I have trouble living with them." NOTES: Redshirt junior running back Gerald Commissiong, playing in his first game of the year, scored his first career touchdown. He has 22 career carries for 47 yards . . . Oregon State has defeated Stanford in their last four meetings by an average of 21 points . . . Senior receiver Justin McCullum recorded career highs in catches (9) and yards (138) against USC . . . Stanford's schedule is rated the second toughest in the nation by the NCAA behind Michigan . . . Senior kicker Michael Sgroi has 43 field goals, fourth on Stanford's all-time list.

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