05-29-2025, 02:52 PM
Since I don't attend Stanford home games in person, I am more interested in excessive advantages for the home or road team. I oppose 9 am PT away games for Stanford on the East Coast *and* 7:30 pm PT home games for Stanford for East Coast opponents. So I have no objection if the SJSU game kicks off at 7:30 pm.
On the other hand, I don't have data to back up my assertion, just anecdotes and assumptions. Anecdotes: Decent to very good Stanford teams lost at Wake Forest in 2009 and at Northwestern in 2015 (both 9 am PT kickoffs). Assumption: I can't think of a bad Stanford team beating a visiting East Coast team in a night game because we've played very few home games vs East Coast teams until last year (the Louisville game kicked off in the early afernoon). But the disadvantage to the East Coast team makes sense to me.
On the other hand, I don't have data to back up my assertion, just anecdotes and assumptions. Anecdotes: Decent to very good Stanford teams lost at Wake Forest in 2009 and at Northwestern in 2015 (both 9 am PT kickoffs). Assumption: I can't think of a bad Stanford team beating a visiting East Coast team in a night game because we've played very few home games vs East Coast teams until last year (the Louisville game kicked off in the early afernoon). But the disadvantage to the East Coast team makes sense to me.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)