Stanford Cardinal (10-2 • 8-1 Pac-12)
USC Trojans (8-4 • 6-3)
December 5, 2015 • 4:45 p.m. PT
Levi’s Stadium (68,500) • Santa Clara, Calif.
Television • Live national broadcast on ESPN with Brad Nessler (play-by-play), Todd Blackledge (analyst) and Holly Rowe (sideline).
Radio • Live coverage on Stanford’s flagship station -- KNBR 1050 AM -- with Scott Reiss ’93 (play-by-play), Todd Husak ’00 (analyst) and John Platz ’84 (sideline). The broadcast begins one hour before kickoff with the Cardinal Tailgate Show and concludes with the postgame Cardinal Locker Room Report. The game can be heard on Stanford student radio -- KZSU 90.1 FM -- and online at kzsulive.stanford.edu. Sirius Satellite Radio (channel 93) and XM Satellite Radio (channel 198) will carry a national broadcast.
Polls • Stanford (7th - AP, 7th - USA Today) • USC (24th - AP, 24th - USA Today)
Live Stats • Live in-game statistics available at GoStanford.com
On the Web • GoStanford.com • USCtrojans.com • Pac-12.com • #GoStanford
• For the third time in the past four seasons, Stanford finds itself in the Pac-12 Football Championship Game where the Cardinal will square off with USC Saturday at Levi’s Stadium.
• The Cardinal has won 14 conference crowns since the program’s inception, most recently in 2012 and 2013.
• Since 2010, Stanford is 45-6 in games played in California (7-1 in 2015, 7-2 in 2014, 7-2 in 2013, 10-0 in 2012, 7-1 in 2011, 7-0 in 2010). Two of those losses came at the hands of USC (2013, 2014).
• Stanford is 22-2 this decade against Golden State opponents.
• Stanford has won 10 games four times in five seasons under head coach David Shaw. From 1891-2010, the program recorded four 10-win seasons.
• Under head coach David Shaw, Stanford is 2-0 in the Pac-12 Championship Game, 3-2 vs. USC, 2-2 at neutral sites, 18-9 vs. AP Top 25, 2-0 in December, 39-13 coming off a win, 18-2 vs. in-state opponents and 16-4 on ESPN.
• The Cardinal leads the Pac-12 in a number of statistical categories, including: third-down conversion percentage (.509), fourth-down conversion percentage (.909), first-down defense (224), tackles for loss allowed (4.50), team passing efficiency (167.89), time of possession (35:21) and winning percentage (.833).
• Sophomore RB and Heisman Trophy candidate Christian McCaffrey leads the FBS with 252.92 all-purpose yards/game, more than 50 yards over second-place Tyler Ervin of San Jose State (200.83). McCaffrey is the Pac-12 single-season record holder with 3,035 all-purpose yards. Since 1978, only four other Pac-12 players have averaged 200 or more all-purpose yards/game for an entire season -- USC’s Marcus Allen in 1981 (232.6), Stanford’s Glyn Milburn in 1990 (202.0), USC’s Reggie Bush in 2005 (222.3) and USC’s Marqise Lee in 2012 (206.4). Coincidentally, Milburn’s teammate in 1990 was Ed McCaffrey (Christian’s father), who had 61 receptions for 917 yards and a conference-leading 91.7 receiving yards/game that season.
• Stanford’s football program received an NCAA GSR of 99 percent for the second consecutive year, a total that leads all FBS and FCS institutions.
• Stanford requires students to declare a major before their junior year. Among the team’s upperclassmen, 16 majors are represented. Eleven Cardinal are engineering majors. Majors with three or more Cardinal student-athletes: communication, economics, human biology, management science and engineering, psychology, public policy, and science, technology and society.
• Situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford’s student-athletes are afforded the opportunity to experience the latest in cutting-edge technology, as the origins of some of the greatest hi-tech breakthroughs and most dynamic companies can trace their roots back to The Farm:
• STRIVR Labs co-founder and former Cardinal kicker Derek Belch has created a truly immersive, fully customizable virtual reality experience specifically for football teams. The platform has already changed the way Stanford’s quarterbacks prepare, and high school, college, and NFL teams are close behind.
• With the help of the Cardinal football team, a group of Stanford doctors and neuroscientists have been working to quantify the head trauma that players sustain during a game. The researchers developed custom mouth guards equipped with accelerometers and gyrometers that measure linear and rotational acceleration -- essentially, how violently the head gets whipped around during a game. The data from the sensors, which the scientists pull from the mouth guards after games and practices throughout the season, provides critical baseline data of how many jarring hits players typically experience.
• Temperature-regulation research of Stanford biologists H. Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn led to a device that rapidly cools body temperature and greatly improves exercise recovery. This is the sort of claim you see in spam email subject lines, not in discussions of mammalian thermoregulation. By taking advantage of specialized heat-transfer veins in the palms of hands, “the glove” can rapidly cool athletes’ core temperatures -- and dramatically improve exercise recovery and performance.
• In 2012, Stanford became the first college program to use iPad playbooks, saving countless trees, dollars and man-hours.