Another week of great sports action, and so many great performances with which to choose. Step right up readers and give us the one (1), uno, une performance that stands out for you this past week.
The Stanford Cardinal earned my POTW. Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans entered Saturday’s game, with the Cardinal, winning 48 of their last 49 home contests – make that 48 of 50.
Stanford’s offense out-gained USC, 469 – 334. Standford’s defense stopped USC on fourth down twice and intercepted three Matt Barkley passes (one returned for a touchdown) as the Cardinal squashed the Trojans, 55-21.
The win represented Stanford’s second win in as many weeks over a top ten opponent. The Cardinal downed 8th-ranked Oregon 51 – 42 a week ago.
Cardinal running back, Toby Gerhart, rushed for 178 yards on 29 carries and scored three touch downs.
USC’s other home loss in the last 50? That also came at the hands of the Cardinal. Stanford beat USC, 24-23 on October 6th, 2007.
Who gets your POTW?
Gotta give it up for Michelle Wie who won her first professional tournament on Sunday at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational.
Her career hasn’t taken off the way most people predicted – but with her recent concentration on the LPGA – a string of victories, might allow her to become the force and drawing card for the LPGA that so many envisioned.
It’s ABOUT TIME for Michelle Wie to win one! But I think it’s a blind squirrel moment and we won’t be seeing that string of W’s you’re talking about, Smitty. Time will tell.
Great call on Stanford, Casey. It’ll be interesting to see what transpires in Palo Alto over the next 3-4 years. Will Harbaugh stay? Will Stanford actually be PAC 10 top 3 material consistently … or is this a flash in the pan? I hope they are here to stay … cuz that would be a message to everyone who says ND cannot get back on or near the top of the heap. Here’s an interesting comparison of the recruiting class rankings for the past 4 years for ND, Stanford and Pitt (data from Scout.com):
2006 (Sr) 2007 (Jr) 2008 (So) 2009 (Fr) Avg
Notre Dame 5 11 2 23 9
Stanford 38 43 43 15 35
Pitt 11 8 25 31 19
ND clearly gets better incoming talent than Pitt and Stanford … “incoming” is the key word. But look at the product on the field right now. It’s obvious that ND’s coaches CAN’T COACH… they can recruit, but they can’t coach. And I’m actually not sure they have any special recruiting talent … the school’s advantages — tradition, exposure/TV, academics, facilities, etc — make it pretty easy in most cases. Only Ty Losingham screwed that up … and that’s cuz he never left the golf course.
Wally, I disagree with you on Michelle Wie. She was playing well as of recent – heck in 18 starts this year (her rookie year) , she has 8 Top Ten finishes. The best thing for her, has been to stay on the LPGA and forget the PGA experiments.
Given her recent putting lessons with Dave Stockton – golf’s sudden putting guru – I think we are going to see a few more victories t
I know … and we’re still waiting for the “can’t miss kid” — Sergio Garcia — to win a major.
Garcia won’t ever win a major… Just doesn’t have the mental fortitude to do it. Woods and others eat him for breakfast everytime it comes to crunch time of a major..