Those Darn Ducks

The last Stanford game was one of the biggest games in a long time for Stanford. Cardinal went into the game going for an 18 game winning streak with their last loss to this same team last year. A Pac-12 Championship game was on the line as well as any hope (even if small) for a National Championship. To add to it, Game Day was being held at Stanford for the first time ever. 

Dennis and Daryl asked for help for this game so we came out of retirement to assist. After driving to Oregon last year, waking up early for GameDay, and then watching us lose at Autzen Stadium...how could we not be there for this face off?

Once the cars and coolers were loaded up we walked over to the oval to get in on some of the action. I was pretty impressed by the turnout. Stanford only has about 7,000 undergrad students making up around 40% of the student population. It may not have been as impressive as some other schools but it looked full on T.V.

Not only was a tree hat put on this year instead of that hideous duck hat, but we actually got a picture with Jim Plunkett....a legendary Stanford quarterback, winner of the 1970 Heisman award, and two Super Bowl championships with the Raiders. It was a brief run in and we didn't really get to talk to him much but it was still exciting.

At 9:30am we were set up and ready for a tailgate. Dennis and Daryl were prepared and brought eggs, bacon, and orange juice so we could enjoy a lovely breakfast instead of just eating burgers all day long.

Scotty made it....yippee!

As usual we had games to add a little friendly competition to the tailgate. We had a relatively small group for quite awhile. (Understandably....the game wasn't until 5pm. Only a crazy person would be up since 6am for a night football game)

One of the best things I saw all day was the burning of an Oregon shirt. Normally I probably would shake my head at such nonsense but I was able to make an exception pretty easily for the Ducks. I became the official photographer.

There were a few kid's playing football in the field behind this who had Oregon shirts on so I felt a little bad for a second. Then they started laughing so I got over it and enjoyed myself.

The way it burned was really cool leaving just the 'OREGON' and the 'O'. The smoke coming off of it made for a pretty awesome picture.

We didn't seek out any Oregon fans to play 'Lance Armstrong' against. We kept it friendly and just had an inner tailgate competition. Our team did win though...it was awesome because we hand picked the team and had a few people who had never played before!

Colin, Dennis, Andi, Cara, Kevin, Moria, Brian

Finally it was time to head in for the game! Spirits were high and the energy in the stadium was amazing!

It was great seeing full stands!

This is one of the last pictures taken while we were still happy and excited.

The game took a turn for the worst and it was not a great showing by Andrew Luck and our Cardinal. He threw 2 interceptions (one off the chest of a receiver) and had a fumble. It was a sad day and we lost :( Pac-12 championship...over. Number 4 ranking....over. A sure bet for a Heisman winner...over. Maybe it was just too much.

We still have a couple football games left against Cal "Beat Cal"! and Notre Dame. After taking a few days to be depressed we're ready to cheer on our Stanford Cardinal this Saturday!