| | Before the season began, Stanford's Rose Bowl-bound football team was picked to finish anywhere from eighth to 10th in the Pacific 10 Conference race. |  | | All-America receiver Troy Walters rose to the occasion for Stanford this season. |
And for a while -- after a 69-17 loss to Texas and a 44-39 loss to San Jose State -- the pollsters looked pretty smart.
"After Texas just about everybody jumped off the bandwagon," says Cardinal wide receiver Troy Walters. "And after San Jose State, everybody was gone."
But the players hung tough. Without a clear-cut conference leader, the Cardinal snuck back into the race and took charge of the Rose Bowl race with two games to go by beating Arizona State as Washington was losing to UCLA.
It was an emotional day for Stanford coach Tyrone Willingham's squad, which knew coming onto the field that Washington was down.
"We couldn't get an updated score," Willingham said, "Not once did ASU show that particular score -- every other score was shown, but at no point was that score mentioned. So we've got alumni on the sidelines with cell phones, radios, whispering and telling us what's going on. Eventually the word filters through our football team, right about the second quarter, that Washington had lost."
Stanford went on to beat ASU and then Bay Area rival Cal the following week to lock up its first outright conference title since the Pac-8 expanded to the Pac-10 and its first Rose Bowl bid in 28 years. And just for good measure, Stanford then capped the season by beating Notre Dame.
"If you had told me after Texas and San Jose State that we'd finish this way," Willingham said, "I honestly can say I wouldn't have believed you."
He, and his players, attribute the turnaround to senior leadership and their unwillingness to give in or give up. It helped that there wasn't a dominant team in the conference, something Willingham believes is the wave of the future in college football. Something called parity.
"A lot of people are saying the Pac-10 is down because we didn't have a clear-cut leader," he said. "What we are now is the forerunner to a different age of football, an age of football where truly any team can win on any given Saturday."
Perhaps. Still, Stanford will be the sixth different Pac-10 team to go to the Rose Bowl in the last six years. After preseason favorite Arizona lost to Penn State in the first week of the season, no conference teams have been rated higher than 15th in either poll. And no Pac-10 team has appeared in the top 20 since Sept. 19.
To be sure, it's tough to recruit on the West Coast, where games are televised at midnight on the East Coast, long after young high school stars have gotten their fill of glittery SEC or ACC battles. And Pac-10 schools are equally attractive in many ways, which tends to deplete the talent pool.
"Within the Pac-10, it's so competitive with so many great athletes, not one school gets all those athletes," says Walters, who will miss the Rose Bowl with a dislocated wrist suffered during practice Tuesday. "It's even among all the teams, and a lot of times they knock off each other so the records might not look as good as other conferences."
As a result, the Rose Bowl, most admit, has lost some of its luster this year. How could a Rose Bowl team lose to 3-7 San Jose State?
Still, to Stanford, a New Year's date with Wisconsin is certainly something to celebrate and something that alumni like John Elway -- or the 27 Stanford grads who are in the NFL -- never had a chance to experience.
"I got a call from Jim Plunkett saying congratulations," said quarterback Todd Husak. "It means a lot to him and all the guys who played through the years."
And a lot to a coach who will become the first African-American ever to coach in the Rose Bowl.
"It's a great feeling and a great sense of accomplishment," Willingham said. "I'll carry the torch for all of us."
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