Wednesday roundtable: What needs to be accomplished in Big Game?

After falling to USC on Saturday, Stanford is preparing to face Cal after a loss for a third consecutive season. Though the Cardinal won’t have trouble finding inspiration for Big Game, the end of team’s season has lost some of its intrigue now that Stanford doesn’t control its own BCS bowl destiny. We asked football writers Winston Shi, Do-Hyoung Park and David Cohn: What steps should the Cardinal be looking to take as a 31-point favorite against the Bears?

Junior quarterback Kevin Hogan (8) threw two critical interceptions against USC that effectively sealed Stanford’s loss. He and the Cardinal offense will need to put up big numbers in the next two games as Stanford pushes for an at-large BCS bid. (ROGER CHEN/The Stanford Daily)

Winston: Stanford’s most important goal now is to improve its BCS bowl chances as much as possible. The chaos of 2007 that propelled two-loss LSU to the national championship is not happening again, and even if it did, Stanford would likely not be the beneficiary.

There are things Stanford can control and there are things it can’t control. Today, the latter is far more imposing than the former. Assuming that Fresno State, Clemson and the SEC No. 2 make the BCS, only one BCS slot will be open. The choices are two-loss Stanford, two-loss Wisconsin, one-loss Michigan State and one-loss Oklahoma State. Of these teams, only Stanford, MSU and OSU are in the BCS top 14 and thus eligible for BCS bowls. Michigan State will take on a resurgent Minnesota team before it likely faces Ohio State. Oklahoma State plays Baylor and Oklahoma. It’s a little strange to think that Stanford has the easiest remaining schedule of the four, but in this regard Stanford is quite lucky. But it is still not in the driver’s seat.

With this in mind, and likely with no more ranked teams left on the schedule, Stanford needs to remind the world that it is a great program. What Stanford can do is beat the stuffing out of what is possibly the worst team in the FBS.

Just beating Cal this season won’t raise many eyebrows. Cal is so bad that letting it hang around would actually be a negative outcome. Therefore, Stanford needs to get attention in whatever way it can. Even 4-6 Colorado beat Cal by three scores. Stanford is a 31-point favorite playing at home and the Cardiac Cardinal needs to cover. Distasteful as it sounds, the only option Stanford has left is to run up the score.

Do: I don’t really harbor any hostility or distaste towards Cal. I’m probably one of the people on campus that is the most ambivalent about the Stanford-Cal rivalry. I have a lot of respect for Cal as a school and have been pretty disappointed to see a once-proud football program sink to the level that it is at right now.

With that being said, if there was ever a time for Stanford to take advantage of the talent gap, run up the score on Cal and exorcise all of its frustrations, now is that time. The Golden Bears are catching the Cardinal at exactly the wrong time.

Big Game is an opportunity for Stanford to regain its footing at home in a rivalry game against an opponent that nobody is expecting to be competitive. After coming out flat and making so many mistakes in a very sloppy loss, the Cardinal needs to take this opportunity to recover and show itself (and the nation) that it still deserves a BCS at-large bid. Realistically, this is the best thing the Cardinal can hope for at this point.

The Card needs to run the ball down Cal’s throats and not let its foot off the gas pedal. Portland State almost beat Cal, meaning that Stanford has to demolish it. Facing one of the worst defenses in the FBS, Kevin Hogan needs to re-establish rapport with his receivers — he has only completed 55 percent of his passes in the last three games — and more importantly, needs to rediscover the poise and confidence in the pocket that he had at the beginning of the season.

David: In my opinion, the game plan for the Cardinal against Cal is very simple: Play your style of football and you will win easily. I feel bad for Cal, as its program is going through the growing pains of starting a true freshman at quarterback with a first-year head coach and a brand new offensive system.

That being said, it would be a waste of everyone’s time to break down this matchup from a personnel perspective, as Stanford’s talent and experience in all three phases of the game far exceeds that of Cal. Cal fans know it. Stanford fans know it. As such, there is no need to dwell on this fact. Let’s move on.

The one way that Stanford can run into trouble is if the Cardinal has not put last week’s loss to USC in the rearview mirror. In particular, it must ignore the BCS bowl chatter, because even at this point in the season, the BCS talk is simply talk. A lot can happen over the course of the final three weeks of the regular season.

Despite what you may hear or read on ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated or any other sports publication, at-large BCS bowl berths are handed out on December 8 and not in BCS bowl projections during the third week of November. Stanford’s fabulous turnouts at the Rose Bowl last season, the Fiesta Bowl in 2012 and the Orange Bowl in 2011 mean that the Cardinal will be a very appealing candidate for an at-large bid if Stanford finishes the year at 10-2.

Stanford must state its case by taking care of business against California and Notre Dame. At the moment, the focus for the team must be on the short-term goals rather than the long-term ones.

Winston Shi, Do-Hyoung Park and David Cohn have been reeling in the wake of the USC loss and have spent the last few days swimming in their own tears, self-doubt and discarded Chinese take-out boxes. Take pity on them and ask them where you can address your care package at wshi94 ‘at’ stanford.edu, dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu and dmcohn ‘at’ stanford.edu.