[Farm93]

I think you guys are placing too much emphasis (hope?) in the fact that UCLA has already won the South. The players will want to beat Stanford because Stanford is a very good football team, and teams measure themselves by wins and losses, but also by signature victories.

I think Stanford will also play hard because that's what Stanford does.

I don't think anyone is subscribing to an Olympic Table Tennis style lose on purpose type effort.  Rather if Stanford is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter the team will know it has got to find a way.  Conversely, if UCLA is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter a fair number of the players on the  team will be thinking about that mulligan option.  Almost all Pac-12 teams are capable of winning on any given weekend, so that possibility of an unprecedented difference in motivation is noteworthy.

[Farm93]

I think you guys are placing too much emphasis (hope?) in the fact that UCLA has already won the South. The players will want to beat Stanford because Stanford is a very good football team, and teams measure themselves by wins and losses, but also by signature victories.

I think Stanford will also play hard because that's what Stanford does.

I don't think anyone is subscribing to an Olympic Table Tennis style lose on purpose type effort.  Rather if Stanford is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter the team will know it has got to find a way.  Conversely, if UCLA is down by 14 points in the 3rd quarter a fair number of the players on the  team will be thinking about that mulligan option.  Almost all Pac-12 teams are capable of winning on any given weekend, so that possibility of an unprecedented difference in motivation is noteworthy.