ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

Beating Stanford as a 7 point underdog at the Farm to take the Cardinal out of the Rose Bowl race?

As the commercials say, priceless.

When the Bears fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter, it looked like Cal was in for a long, long night. But once they let Toby Gerhart get that 61-yard run out of his system early, they mostly held him in check for the rest of the evening. That seems like a strange thing to say about a running back who scored four touchdowns, but trust me - it could have been a lot worse.

Cal dominated the second quarter and easily could have led 21-14 at halftime, but I felt pretty good about them narrowing the gap to 14-10. The third quarter is when they really asserted themselves, marching up and down the field and allowing Stanford very little - and it sure didn't look like that was the same offense that rang up 50 on Oregon and USC.

The fourth quarter was the kind of Big Game craziness that we haven't seen in a while, and have rarely seen at Stanford (for some reason, most of the classic games have taken place in Berkeley). On the last drive it looked as if Stanford would pull it out, but fortunately for the Bears, quarterback Andrew Card picked exactly the right time to begin looking like the redshirt freshman that he is. Interception, game over, 34-28 win, and all of a sudden Cal moves ahead of "the hottest team in the country" in the Pac-10 standings.

It was a great game; it was a great Big Game; and just maybe it taught Jim Harbaugh a thing or two about karma. And now it looks like we'll have a great Big Game rivalry for a while yet, since the Cardinal's loss probably takes Harbaugh out of the running for a "higher profile" job.

But back to the most important point - Cal beat Stanford, for the 7th time in 8 seasons.