For Stanford and Cal, questions of bowls and big swings

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The Big Game has not been the final regular-season game for both Cal and Stanford since 2007, so the game that once represented the culmination of the college football season in the Bay Area now leaves loose ends.

Bowl destinations and one-season turnarounds remain issues for both teams.

Stanford and Cal have been in bowls in the same season only four times, and they have not both won bowl games in the same season.

Bay Area bowling?

If Stanford beats UCLA on Friday in Pasadena, the Cardinal very well could wind up in the Foster Farms Bowl at Levi’s Stadium on Dec. 30 against a Big Ten team, perhaps Iowa or Nebraska.

If the Cardinal lose, they might be in the Cactus Bowl (formerly known as the Insight Bowl) in Tempe, Ariz., or the Las Vegas Bowl.

In any case, Stanford (6-5) is bowl eligible and presumably will play in a postseason game for the sixth straight season, extending an ongoing school record for consecutive bowl appearances.

That hardly puts the Cardinal in elite company, though. Florida State will be making a bowl appearance for the 33rd consecutive year, the longest active streak in the country. Virginia Tech will be in a bowl for the 22nd straight year if it beats Virginia on Saturday.

Nine teams have been in bowls each of the past 10 years, and Virginia Tech is the only one of those in jeopardy of having its streak broken this season.

Cal’s Bryce McGovern breaks up a pass intended for Stanford’s Jeff Trojan during Saturday’s Big Game. The Cardinal is bowl eligible after winning, and the Bears could yet join them. Cal’s Bryce McGovern breaks up a pass intended for Stanford’s Jeff Trojan during Saturday’s Big Game. The Cardinal is bowl eligible after winning, and the Bears could yet join them. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close For Stanford and Cal, questions of bowls and big swings 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The record for the most consecutive years in a bowl game is 35 by Nebraska (1969-2003).

Cardinal drop-off

If Stanford loses to UCLA and a bowl game, the Cardinal would wind up with a losing record (6-7) one year after going 11-3 and playing in the Rose Bowl.

The Cardinal had worse skids in 2002 (when they went 2-9 in Buddy Teevens’ first season as head coach one year after Tyrone Willingham went 9-3) and 1993 (when Stanford went 4-7 in Bill Walsh’s second year in his second stint as head coach one year after going 10-3). But neither the 2001 nor 1992 Stanford team went to the Rose Bowl, which was the Cardinal’s bowl destination the past two years.

Stanford can remove the negative discussion by beating UCLA, but the Bruins have won five straight and are still in contention for a spot in the four-team national championship playoff.

Cal on the edge

If Cal beats BYU in Berkeley on Saturday, it will become bowl eligible. The Pac-12 will have guaranteed spots in seven or eight bowls (depending on whether it gets one or two teams into the six major bowls). Eight conference teams are already bowl-eligible, with the possibility of two more. That means the Bears could be thrown into a faraway bowl that needs an at-large team, such as the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas.

It’s possible — though not likely — that Cal could be shut out of a bowl even if it beats BYU. The 38 bowls can accommodate 76 teams. Seventy-three teams are already bowl eligible, with 16 others, including Cal, still capable of joining them.

Last season, nine bowl-eligible teams did not get a bowl bid, including Western Kentucky, which was 8-4. However, every bowl-eligible team from one of the five power conferences got a bowl bid, so Cal should be fairly safe if it beats BYU.

Bears’ turnaround

If Cal (5-6) beats BYU and gets a bowl berth, it will become the first team from what is now the Pac-12 to play in a bowl one season after losing 11 games.

The current Pac-12 has been configured a number of ways from 1916 to the present, but no team from the conference played in a bowl game one year after losing as many as 10 games.

The closest were two Cal teams.

The 1958 Bears went 7-4 and played in the Rose Bowl in Joe Kapp’s senior season one year after going 1-9.

The 2002 Cal team went from 1-10 in Tom Holmoe’s final season as head coach to 7-5 in Jeff Tedford’s first season. However, NCAA sanctions prevented the Bears from playing in a bowl game.

If Cal beats BYU (the Cougars’ athletic director is Holmoe, by the way) and wins a bowl game to finish 7-6 after going 1-11 a year ago, it would represent a major improvement in Sonny Dykes’ second season. But it would not be the biggest turnaround this season. Western Michigan, which went 1-11 last year, is 8-3 under second-year head coach P.J. Fleck, who turns 34 Saturday.

Jake Curtis is a freelance writer

AP Top 25

With first-place votes in parentheses, records through Saturday, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking:

Rec. Pts Pv 1. Florida State (37) 11-0 1,458 1 2. Alabama (21) 10-1 1,445 2 3. Oregon (2) 10-1 1,393 3 4. Mississippi State 10-1 1,301 4 5. Baylor 9-1 1,234 6 6. TCU 9-1 1,233 5 7. Ohio State 10-1 1,163 7 8. Georgia 9-2 1,002 9 9. UCLA 9-2 998 11 10. Michigan State 9-2 971 10 11. Kansas State 8-2 898 12 12. Arizona 9-2 807 15 13. Arizona State 9-2 790 13 14. Wisconsin 9-2 764 14 15. Auburn 8-3 597 16 16. Georgia Tech 9-2 581 17 17. Missouri 9-2 525 19 18. Mississippi 8-3 398 8 19. Marshall 11-0 384 18 20. Oklahoma 8-3 363 23 21. Colorado State 10-1 346 22 22. Minnesota 8-3 232 NR 23. Clemson 8-3 198 NR 24. Louisville 8-3 191 NR 25. Boise State 9-2 96 NR

Others receiving votes: Arkansas 40, LSU 39, Nebraska 14, Utah 14, Duke 9, USC 8, Memphis 3, Texas A&M 2, West Virginia 2, Central Florida 1.

Terrific turnarounds

Our rankings of the top six one-season turnarounds (based on the kind of nebulous and undisclosed criteria the College Football Playoff selection committee uses):

6. Florida, 1980: Charlie Pell went 0-10-1 in his first season as the Gators’ head coach in 1979 and then 8-4 in his second.

5. Miami, 1945: Jack Harding returned and led the Hurricanes to a 9-1-1 record the year after Eddie Dunn went 1-7-1 in his first and only season as a head coach.

4. Purdue, 1943: The Boilermakers went 1-8 in 1942, scoring just 27 points. They went 9-0 and won the Big Ten the next year.

3. South Carolina, 2000: Lou Holtz was 62 when he went 0-11 in his first season with the Gamecocks. He proved he wasn’t over the hill in his second when South Carolina finished 8-4, including a bowl win over Ohio State.

2. Auburn, 2013: The Tigers were 3-9 in 2012 — 0-8 in the SEC. But in Gus Malzahn’s first year, the Tigers went 12-2, won the rugged SEC and led Florida State in the national championship game with less than 20 seconds left.

1. Stanford, 1940: After Stanford went 1-7-1 in 1939, head coach Tiny Thornhill was replaced by Clark Shaughnessy, who introduced his version of the T formation, which revolutionized the game and took Stanford to a 10-0 record in 1940 that included a Rose Bowl victory and a No. 2 national ranking. Shaughnessy was also an adviser to the Chicago Bears, who used the T formation to beat Washington 73-0 in the 1940 NFL championship game.

— Jake Curtis