College football preview: Cal fans' 7-year slide

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Transport yourself, if you care to, back to 2006. The world was a very different place. George W. Bush was president. Myspace was the most visited website in the world. Simon was still on "American Idol."

And here in the Bay Area, Stanford football was a complete embarrassment, finishing 1-11 under Walt Harris, one of the most humiliating seasons in more than a century of football on the Farm.

In contrast, Cal had just gone 10-3, with a share of the conference championship. Aaron Rodgers was already in the NFL, but DeSean Jackson and Marshawn Lynch were two of the most exciting players in the country. Jeff Tedford had the pipeline stocked, the program rolling.

Which team would you have bet on for success going forward? Yeah, so would have a lot of Cal fans.

These rival programs tend to go in cycles, but this current cycle may be the most bitter in history for Cal fans, given the disparate state of the programs, the stakes and the current climate of college football. Stanford has been resurrected, astonishingly becoming not only the top program in the Bay Area but also a BCS powerhouse, arguably the only team in the country able to compete with the SEC bullies. Along the way, the Cardinal lost a genius coach and a star quarterback and only got better.

Cal, meanwhile, is starting over again, after failing to fulfill all that great promise of the past decade. The Bears are coming off a disastrous 3-9 season. They have a new coach who doesn't arrive with a big-time resume. They're starting a true freshman at quarterback. They finally have a new stadium but are falling short in its financing, in part because of the lackluster program.

How rough is it to be a Cal fan right now? To find out, I took a poll of some of the most die-hard Cal fans I know - and I know a lot of them, some by blood, some by longtime friendship. I know a lot of Stanford fans too, but - gross generalization - the Cal fans are much more passionate as a group. Stanford fans are pleasantly surprised when their team does well, mildly disconcerted when it's bad. Cal fans beat their chests when things are good; otherwise they writhe and moan and obsess about the elusive Rose Bowl.

So in January, when the Bears were nursing the sting of a failed season and Stanford went out and won the Rose Bowl, just how bad was it? Which development was more irritating?

My brother took the high road and weighed in for Cal's failure (but, then, he's married to a Stanford alumna). Most others, however, voted for Stanford's Rose Bowl. "One success by them is more irritating than 100 failures by Cal," said Lars Monroe.

Disappointed Cal fans watch Stanford celebrate its 21-3 win in the 115th Big Game, in October at Memorial Stadium. Stanford's subsequent trip to the Rose Bowl probably didn't cheer them up. Disappointed Cal fans watch Stanford celebrate its 21-3 win in the 115th Big Game, in October at Memorial Stadium. Stanford's subsequent trip to the Rose Bowl probably didn't cheer them up. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close College football preview: Cal fans' 7-year slide 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Mike Silver, the NFL writer, agreed, saying: "I'd like to be an evolved, mature person ... but no such inner peace is forthcoming." It hurt Cal fans even more because Cal was robbed of a trip to the Rose Bowl in 2004 by a cheating USC team. KNBR personality Kate Scott said she was "still dry heaving" at the thought of Stanford's Rose Bowl.

Almost everyone in my unscientific survey would be willing to bet the cost of his or her Cal education on the belief that Tedford would develop another great quarterback after Rodgers, as opposed to betting that Stanford football would become a force. Almost all would be willing to trade away bragging rights to Rodgers - arguably the best quarterback in the NFL - in return for a Rose Bowl win or Big Game success. Scott, however differs: "What Aaron continues to do for the Cal brand is something that winning maybe even the Rose Bowl just can't match. While I'd love to win a Rose Bowl before I die, I know the only way to achieve that is by getting the best of the best to come to Berkeley, and Aaron helps achieve that goal."

The "before I die" theme is a common one.

"Sometime before I die I'd like to see Cal in a Rose Bowl," my brother Paul said. "Pretty much everything else is on the table."

To rub salt into the wound, Cal fans went to their mailbox last month and discovered Sports Illustrated drooling over Stanford in its cover story, with Shayne Skov on the cover. The story, called "Revenge of the Nerd," accompanies SI rankings that have Stanford No. 2 in the country behind Alabama.

"I can't even bring myself to pick it up," Scott said.

What's more likely to happen first? Cal wins a Rose Bowl, Stanford alum Tiger Woods wins another major or hell freezes over? Kathleen Clifford, who once lived in walking distance to the Rose Bowl and once fantasized about raucous New Year's Day parties with a house full of rabid Cal fans, said that sadly she expects snow in hell before a Rose Bowl.

Cal scored only a field goal in last year's Big Game. But Bear Backers take some solace in that - as embarrassing as that was - it still doesn't come close to Stanford's rugby team forfeiting a 2001 game against Cal for fear of getting hurt. So there's that. "That defines the 'Furd ethos," said Dan Walsh, using the Cal pejorative for Cardinal fans.

"It's the wimpiest thing I've heard of in nearly a quarter century of covering sports," Silver said.

Silver also was horrified by the scene at Stanford in December when - for a game to determine the Rose Bowl - the stadium, already small by BCS standards, was only half full.

"I think what's hardest for me," said Silver, who could envision a sold-out Memorial Stadium and a mob on Tightwad Hill if such a similar scenario took place at Cal, "is that I don't get the sense that it means that much to Stanford people. ... That's the most depressing thing of all."

But what's really hardest of all for Cal fans might be what Mike McCarthy explains.

"The most irritating thing," McCarthy said, "is that I find myself admiring and respecting Stanford's program."

His thought was echoed by others. Stanford isn't USC or Oregon; it isn't a semipro football factory. It is a program that graduates its players and is run with integrity. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of program Cal fans want.

For Cal fans, it doesn't get any more bitter than that.