Lakshman: The beauty of the Stanford-Oregon rivalry

It’s that time of the year again. The annual “unofficial but, come on, let’s be serious” Pac-12 North Championship game.

While, much like last year, Saturday’s contest between Oregon and Stanford lacks the earth-shattering, game-of-the-century vibe of 2011 or 2013, both teams enter this game playing their best football of the season with the title of “Best in the West” still up for the taking.

Sure, the Cardinal could lose on Nov. 14 and still secure a spot in Levi’s Stadium with a win over Cal the following week or with some help from the Ducks, but there would undoubtedly be something unsatisfying, almost unwholesome, about losing to Oregon along the way.

In a true testament to the stew of hatred that this rivalry brews, this game feels like a championship unto itself. As has been the case every year going back to 2009, the road to West Coast supremacy arrives at the crossroads of The Farm and Tracktown, USA.

With the renaissance of the Vernon Adams-led Ducks, who amassed a school record 777 yards last week — an especially impressive feat considering the offenses that have preceded it — as well as the continued maturation of the Cardinal on both sides of the ball, Stanford-Oregon again has the high-stakes and spectacular football we’ve come to expect from what has easily been one of the most compelling rivalries of the decade.

And, naturally, with the intrigue and excitement surrounding this game, the obligatory talking points, the sweeping generalizations that try to articulate to us why we admire this game in the first place, have resurfaced in paragraph, soundbite and 140-character form.

We’ve all had the traditional narrative of this game seared into our subconscious: a battle of flash vs. form, between an offense that runs at breakneck speed and one that literally tries to break your neck, the contrast between Cardinal red and highlighter yellow.

In reality, the complexion of this game is much more intriguing. Stanford will spread you out and dump the ball to a playmaker in space far more often than any tidy journalistic report would have you believe. Oregon boasts a 230-pound bruiser in Royce Freeman who looks like he was genetically engineered to run power down your throat 40 times a game. I can’t be the only one who loses sleep at night imagining what Bryce Love would look like in forest green leading that offense in hyperdrive. Anyone who calls the Ducks “soft” in the trenches has yet to take a good look at DeForest Buckner.

The point is that Stanford-Oregon spills over the traditional distinctions and standard cues we’ve reserved for talking about this rivalry. Nonetheless, this game is special and the enmity on the field is real, but not because of some desire to win a philosophical battle on the essence of football or lay claim to the title of the nation’s most resurgence program.

Instead, the Stanford-Oregon clash has mattered — and will again matter in 2015 — because of the fact that this game does have serious consequences. Nothing quite christens a budding rivalry quite like having your hopes, dreams and everything you’ve worked so hard for stripped away in matter of 60 exhilarating minutes.

Both teams know the feeling well. In 2011, a Cardinal squad 7-0 in conference play (the same record Stanford brings into this year’s matchup) ran directly into the teeth of Chip Kelly’s chainsaw as the undefeated Ducks, just like the year before, ended Stanford’s dream of a national title. Meanwhile, the Cardinal returned the favor in 2012 and 2013, the latter of which in a performance so thoroughly dominant that Marcus Mariota was reportedly spotted sobbing into his father’s arms after the game. One has to think that Andrew Luck felt that same, sinking pain two years earlier.

That’s why this game is so compelling: It brings a Heisman trophy-winning quarterback to his most vulnerable, crushing dreams left and right. With consequences come great football and with great football comes consequences.

Although last year’s game — an Oregon blowout no matter how you slice it — lacked the excitement of its predecessors, don’t forget that even the best series have their duds. But for every 42-12 and 49-0 Alabama victories in 2011 and 2012, we get treated to the “Kick Six” of 2013. The best rivalries can’t stay dormant for long.

As Stanford and Oregon stride toward their clash this Saturday, peaking at the right time, we might be in for another one of those special treats that reminds us just how good football can be. The North is up for the taking.

Vihan Lakshman is more excited than a kid in a candy shop for Saturday’s matchup between Stanford and Oregon. Give him tips for keeping his composure when he’s doing the live broadcast of the game at vihan ‘at’ stanford.edu.