[Gauss]

Make that three in support of the definitional argument. "Dark horse" means little-known or unexpected. When the team Under Stanford Control was still everybody's choice for the conference championship, somebody picking Oregon instead would never have referred to the Ducks as a dark-horse candidate.

That's exactly what it is. Preseason, there was a big 2 (U.SC, Oregon), and Stanford stood like the third alternative. Now there is a big 1, and U.SC and Stanford waiting for an Oregon mishap. Neither of the 3 can be considered dark horses, and he actually refers to something like this when he picks Georgia as the SEC darkhorse, but adds "It's hard to label a top-five team a dark horse".

I think Stanford is getting adequate respect, and if they are able to win the next 3 games convincingly, we'll be talking about top-5 soon enough.  :)

[Gauss]

Make that three in support of the definitional argument. "Dark horse" means little-known or unexpected. When the team Under Stanford Control was still everybody's choice for the conference championship, somebody picking Oregon instead would never have referred to the Ducks as a dark-horse candidate.

That's exactly what it is. Preseason, there was a big 2 (U.SC, Oregon), and Stanford stood like the third alternative. Now there is a big 1, and U.SC and Stanford waiting for an Oregon mishap. Neither of the 3 can be considered dark horses, and he actually refers to something like this when he picks Georgia as the SEC darkhorse, but adds "It's hard to label a top-five team a dark horse".

I think Stanford is getting adequate respect, and if they are able to win the next 3 games convincingly, we'll be talking about top-5 soon enough.  :)