128th Big Game kickoff time announced: Stanford vs. Cal
The kickoff time for the 128th Big Game has been announced: 4:30 PM PT on Saturday, November 22nd. Stanford will be the home team as Cal will be making the trip down from Berkeley to The Farm. The game will air on ACC Network. Stanford enters Big Game 3-7 overall and 2-5 in the ACC while Cal comes in at 6-4 overall and 3-3 in the ACC.
Cal has won four straight Big Games going back to 2021. The largest margin of victory for Cal during this win streak was their 41-11 victory in 2021 at Stanford. In 2022, Cal won in Berkeley by a final score of 27-20. In 2023, Cal won at Stanford by a final score of 27-15. And then last year in Berkeley, Cal won 24-21. Ironically, the games in Berkeley have been closer.
Stanford is hoping that this year they can finally reclaim the Stanford Axe and that with the game being on The Farm, that will give them an advantage. If there’s any reason for Stanford to have hope in winning it this year, a lot of it would stem from the fact that they are 3-1 at home as opposed to being 0-6 on the road. While a lot of that is a function of opponent (Stanford’s wins are over Boston College, San Jose State, and Florida State), Stanford still seems to be a lot more confident when they are playing on The Farm.
As for Cal, they are 3-2 at home and 3-2 on the road, so they’ve been pretty consistent in that regard. At the same time they’ve been pretty up and down. Cal has big wins over Minnesota (27-14) and No. 14 Louisville (29-26) while also having some disappointing losses to San Diego State (0-34) and Virginia Tech (34-42 in double overtime). Those losses were both on the road while the win against Louisville was this past weekend on the road. The Minnesota win was in Berkeley back in September.
After starting the season 3-0 following the win over Minnesota, Cal has not followed up a win with another win. After their win over Minnesota came the loss to San Diego State. After beating Boston College 28-24 on the road, they fell to Duke at home 21-45. And then after narrowly defeating North Carolina 21-18, they lost two straight games at Virginia Tech and then at home against Virginia (21-31).
The combination of Stanford playing much better at home and Cal struggling to string multiple wins in a row makes this year’s game rather interesting. If I could point to one thing early on, it would be the quarterback battle between Stanford redshirt freshman Elijah Brown and Cal true freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.
Brown has recently been named the starter for Stanford after sitting behind sixth year veteran Ben Gulbranson. Brown made his first start of the season this past weekend at North Carolina. In Stanford’s 15-20 loss, Brown had a solid outing, going 27-39 for 284 yards, one touchdown and one interception while having a 133.7 passing efficiency rating. On the season, Brown has gone 46-70 for 502 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception for a 125.5 passing efficiency rating.
As for Sagapolutele, he had a fantastic performance in Cal’s 29-26 overtime win at Louisville, going 30-47 for 323 yards, two touchdowns, and zero interceptions for a 135.6 passing efficiency rating. On the season, he has gone 224-364 for 2518 yards, 13 touchdowns, and nine interceptions for a 126.5 passing efficiency rating. His 364 passing attempts leads the ACC.
Interestingly enough, the two quarterbacks have pretty similar passing efficiency ratings. The difference is Sagapolutele has started 10 games and thrown more passes than anyone in the ACC whereas Brown has just the one start under his belt and less than 20% of the amount of attempts. On those grounds, one has to give Cal the edge in quarterback play. Sagapolutele has a lot more experience under center and then on top of that, he’s been really good.
If Stanford wants to win Big Game this year, it’s going to have to start with their defense putting pressure on Sagapolutele combined with their own offensive line giving Brown enough time to make the kind of throws that he is capable of making. If Stanford is able to accomplish those two things, they’ll have a real chance to bring the Axe home. If not, it’ll be staying in Berkeley for another year. Simple as that.
Note: Cardinal Sports Report has you covered for all the latest news on Stanford as they begin the Andrew Luck era.
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