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Stenstrom leads Stanford

Cardinal QB poses

threat to Bruins' secondary squad

By Scott Yamaguchi

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Never, never, never was it supposed to come to this.

No, not in anyone's right mind was it imagined that Saturday's 3:30 p.m. showdown between Stanford and UCLA at the Rose Bowl would be a matchup of two teams playing for pride.

In fact, in August, before the college football season began, it was generally believed that this game ­ in the ninth-week of the season ­ would have some immediate influence on the Pacific-10 Conference's race for the Rose Bowl Game.

But with three games remaining on their schedule, the Bruins (2-6 overall, 0-5 in the Pac-10) have been guaranteed a losing season, while Stanford (2-4-1, 1-3), with four games left, is a longshot in the bowl picture. A loss for the Cardinal Saturday would eliminate any remaining hope, and it would seem that a senior season without post-season play would be an injustice to quarterback Steve Stenstrom.

The 6-foot-3-inch, 205-pound signal-caller will finish his career at the top of virtually all quarterbacking categories in the Stanford and Pac-10 record books, and he needs just 66 passing yards to become only the 10th player in NCAA Division I-A history to throw for over 10,000 career yards.

To Stenstrom, however, as with any team player, individual accolades are secondary to team success, and in that regard, his final season has been a disappointment.

"In terms of yards and going for records, I hope that I don't have to throw for as many as I did last year," he said before the season began. "If we accomplish our primary goal of going to a major bowl game, the records will take care of themselves."

On the contrary, the yards and the records have seemingly come easy for Stenstrom this year, but winning games has not; as a result, he probably has not received the recognition he so deserves.

Stenstrom, one of 12 nominees for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, has been one of Stanford's only bright spots in an otherwise disappointing season.

Under his leadership, the Cardinal offense ranks first in the conference in passing offense, total offense and scoring offense, but a mediocre rushing attack and a defense that ranks 10th in scoring defense have gotten in the way of team success.

Defense was a preseason concern of Stanford head coach Bill Walsh after last year's squad posted similar numbers in an eighth-place Pac-10 finish. The third-year skipper had hoped to correct the problems this year with a more experienced team.

"Defensively, we were 149th out of 150 in the nation last year and, obviously, there's got to be some improvement," Walsh said in August. "Typically, Stanford has not had some of the speed on defense that some of the opposition has and we've struggled with that over the years. But we do feel that we have some experience, some young talent and that we'll improve markedly."

Obviously, the defense hasn't improved enough, nor has the rushing game. But, in the Bruins, Stanford will be facing a team that ranks sixth in total offense, 10th in scoring offense and 10th in rushing defense.

And Stenstrom ­ who has 12 touchdowns and four interceptions this season ­ will be looking for senior wide receiver Justin Armour to take advantage of an extremely young UCLA secondary.

UCLA's offensive rankings, however, might not be indicative of the team that shows up Saturday, mainly because the Bruins will see the return of several starters ­ most notably receiver J.J. Stokes ­ who have been heldout of competition for three quarters of the season because of injuries.

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