A Football Calendar Favorite

STANFORD, Calif. - A first down is 10 yards. A touchdown is six points. Put those two numbers together on a calendar -- as in Oct. 6, or 10/6 -- and you get a most memorable date in modern Stanford football history.
 
In the past half century, not only has Stanford won each of the six times it has played a football game on Oct. 6, the nature of each win has been truly remarkable. Here is a summary of each of these six very memorable Oct. 6 Cardinal football games:
 
October 6, 1973: Stanford 24, Illinois 0 (Champaign, Ill.)
Underdogs to a heavily-favored Illini team playing in its home stadium, Stanford withstands the second-quarter loss of starting quarterback Mike Boryla to injury, and parlays its recovery of three Illini fumbles into three Stanford touchdown drives totaling just 23 yards -- combined. Linebacker Gordon Riegel contributes 17 tackles, two pass deflections and a forced fumble in the game to lead a sterling Stanford defensive effort against a Big Ten opponent on its home turf. Forty-five seasons and fifty-four games have now come and gone without a Stanford football team having again produced a nonconference road shutout.
 
October 6, 1979: Stanford 27, UCLA 24 (Stanford, Calif.)
Ken Naber, kicking into a slight breeze, drills a 56-yard field goal on the game's final play to give the Cardinal a dramatic win over the Bruins at Stanford Stadium. Gordon Banks' block of a UCLA field goal attempt with 1:11 remaining makes the winning kick possible, as does a seven-play, 38-yard, John Elway-led drive into Bruin territory following the missed field goal attempt. Naber's kick, which had a slight hook to its trajectory, glanced off the inside portion of the goalpost's left upright -- three feet above the crossbar -- and careened through for the winning points. Two Stanford freshmen have key roles in the game-winning kick: the snapper was Mike Teeuws and the holder was Elway.
 
October 6, 1984: Stanford 23, UCLA 21 (Pasadena, Calif.)
Backup quarterback Fred Buckley, subbing for injured starter John Paye and possessing only five snaps of prior game experience in his Cardinal career, directs Stanford to an upset win over the preseason national top-ranked Bruins. Buckley throws a 22-yard touchdown pass to Jeff James to help Stanford jump out to a 20-0 first-half lead, and the Garin Veris and Dave Wyman-led Cardinal defense rebuffs the Bruins on fourth down in Stanford territory in the final two minutes of the game to preserve the win. It is UCLA's first regular-season loss at the Rose Bowl since the team moved its home games there two seasons prior (1982).
 
October 6, 1990: Stanford 36, Notre Dame 31 (Notre Dame, Ind.)
A four-rushing-touchdown performance by running back Tommy Vardell -- the final touchdown coming with just 36 seconds remaining in the game -- propels the Cardinal to a come-from-behind win over the nation's No. 1 team and deals the Fighting Irish their first home loss in 19 games. Three fumbled punts by Notre Dame, each recovered by an opportunistic Cardinal punt coverage team, are key factors in Stanford's comeback, and safety Jimmy Klein's defense of a Notre Dame touchdown pass attempt on the game's final play helps preserve the Cardinal win. For the remainder of the season and continuing to this day, "Touchdown Tommy" is a nationally-known moniker within the college football world.
 
October 6, 2007: Stanford 24, USC 23 (Los Angeles, Calif.)
In one of the most famous games in college football history, Mark Bradford's leaping, body-twisting reception of a 10-yard touchdown pass from Tavita Pritchard with 49 seconds remaining in the game provides (with the extra point) the winning margin in Stanford's 24-23 upset of No. 1 USC. Several key plays by the Cardinal earlier in the game make the game-winning touchdown possible: Pannel Egboh's block of a Trojan extra point attempt in the first half, Austin Yancy's pick-six interception in the third quarter, and Pritchard's fourth-down completion to Richard Sherman three plays prior to the Bradford reception. Following the epic Pritchard-Bradford connection, Bo McNally's mid-field interception of a John David Booty pass attempt in the game's final seconds seals the victory for Stanford.
 
October 6, 2012: Stanford 54, Arizona 48 (OT) (Stanford, Calif.)
Trailing by 14 points midway through the fourth quarter, the Cardinal rallies with two late scores, the second of which is a Josh Nunes three-yard touchdown run with 45 seconds remaining in regulation -- one play after Nunes kept Stanford's hopes alive with a fourth-and-9 pass completion to Zach Ertz. On a crazy afternoon in which each team piles up exactly 617 yards of total offense, Stanford linebacker Chase Thomas in overtime intercepts an Arizona pass attempt that had been tipped by teammate Henry Anderson, giving the ball to Stanford and setting up a 21-yard touchdown run by all-time rushing leader Stepfan Taylor two plays later that clinches victory for the Cardinal.
  
The amazing list of games detailed above comprises every Stanford football game played on Oct. 6 during the past half century. In other words, the Cardinal not only wins football games on Oct. 6, it wins them in memorable ways. 
 
Where will you be this Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018?