It's hard to tell who's more shocked over Stanford's improbable 24-23 win over Number 1 or Number 2 ranked USC, Cardinal Fans or USC Fans , or College Football fans .
Or for that matter, me.
When I thought about the Stanford / USC matchup, it never occured to me that this would happen. It wasn't even on my radar screen to see it. I happened to hear it flipping the radio tuner and stopped. I was expecting that USC would be clobbering Stanford. And even when I learned that the Cardinal was only six points down with just over 2 minutes left, I thought to myself, "watch their fear of success doom them."
That's what I thought.
And those final two minutes gave me a lot of reasons to think that, from the several near-interception throws, to the final holding penalty on Stanford, and then the 12-men-on-the-field penalty, to the 4th down -- 4th down -- touchdown pass. It seemed that Stanford would almost -- but not -- win the game.
But, just as in life, they had chance after chance, and one of them turned up in their favor when it mattered most as this video shows:
And when it did, I screamed. I hollered. I'd wished I was at a sports bar just to see the reactions. Even the annoucer couldn't believe it, screaming "Touchdown USC! No! Stanford! Stanford!" Geez.
What's cool about this is it proves that nothing is certain, nothing is given, and it's all up to God. Think about it. The winning quarterback Tavita Pritchard, a sophomore from Tacoma, Wash., filling in for the injured starter T.C. Ostrander, completed 11-of-30 for 149 yards and the winning TD in his first college game as a starter.
Wow. Another reason to expect a Stanford loss. But it didn't happen.
I thought about going down to Stanford to celebrate the victory. After all, looking at this video from the Stanford campus celebration, you can see it was fun:
USC QB John David Booty who threw four interceptions, said of the loss, "You just gotta deal with it and move on."
The Meaning Of The Number 4
What they've got to deal with is the biggest upset in college football history. Stanford was a 40-point-underdog and pulled out a game that's marked with spritual references to the number 4: 24 -- the Stanford score; 14 -- Stanford QB Tavita Pritchard's jersy number; 4th down -- the down the TD pass was thrown -- 4 interceptions thrown by USC QB John David Booty; 4 -- the number of sacks by the Stanford Defense. What is it about the number 4? Well, is seems that the number has some real significance.
In Buddhism:
The Group of Fours 1. The Four Noble Truths 1. Suffering 2. The Cause of Suffering 3. The Cessation of Suffering 4. The Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering
2. The Four Mental Principles 1. Wisdom (Panna) 2. Truthfulness (Sacca) 3. Abandonment of evil and selfishness (Caga) 4. Appeasement (Upasama)
3. The Four Bases of Success 1. Appreciation (Chanda) 2. Effort (Viriya) 3. Attention (Citta) 4. Investigation (Vimamsa)
4. The Four Divine States of Mind 1. Loving-kindness (Metta) 2. Compassion (Karuna) 3. Sympathetic joy over others' achievement (Mudita) 4. Equanimity (Upekkha)
5. The Four Virtues Conducive to Social Welfare 1. Generosity (Dana) 2. Kind Speech (Piyavaca) 3. Benevolence (Atthacaritya) 4. Adaptability (Samanattata)
6. The Fourfold Right Effort: 1. Effort to restrain from evil 2. Effort to abandon evil 3. Effort to develop good 4. Effort to maintain good
4 Virtues According to Plato:
Wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice.
Considering that Stanford was suffering, given their being waxed by Arizona State and losing their starting QB the week before, the 4s came into play, but it seems to mean that in this, Stanford has finished their journey through the road to success and achieved it, and in doing so reached a divine state of mind.
Will the Cardinal run the table and win all of its remaining games? Even this Cal fan has to admit the possibility seems real. I know it places a bigger light on this year's Big Game.
Boy this is a fun year!
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