Sydney hosts two of the United States’ top universities’ American football teams today when the University of Stanford and Rice University meet at Allianz Stadium.
The Stanford Cardinal play in the Pac-12, the strongest conference of teams on the west coast of the US, and are ranked #14 of the 130 schools playing top-division gridiron in the country. They have consistently challenged for their conference title over the last decade and been in the conversation for the national championship, although they’ve yet to make the four-team finals in its recently-adjusted format.
Stanford University sits just south of San Francisco on the same peninsula in California’s Bay Area, and is not only one of the top academic schools in the United States but the consistent winner of the Capital One Cup, the award for the top-division university with the most overall success in all of its intramural sports activities across the nation.
Rice University, near Dallas, Texas, is also one of the top schools in the United States.
Unfortunately, that’s about all the two have in common.
Rice plays in Conference-USA, a fourteen-team league spread across the Midwestern US, one of what’s referred to as the “Group Of Five” conferences (as opposed to the “Power Five”, to which Stanford’s Pac-12 belongs), and while in theory the ten conferences operate for the same national championship prize and in the same top-division of college gridiron football, the categorical names give the stratification away.
The media rankings agree with my ELO-Following Football handicap system in having Stanford ranked #14 to start the year. While they only rank the top 25 or so, I have Rice tied for #113 out of the 130 schools in the top-division this fall here. (Yes, it’s approaching fall here.)
While Stanford is the third choice in the Pac-12 and should challenge defending conference champion University of Washington for the title, Rice sits a distant fourth in the seven team western division of their conference, behind favourite Louisiana Tech and closer to the bottom than the top.
Last November, Rice travelled to Stanford University for its final game of the season (the Cardinal played a “bowl game” in the post-season as a reward for their success, while the Rice Owls stayed home after having a losing record), and lost 41-17. That 24-point margin is what we’re predicting for today’s game as well.
Finally, if you’re going today, remember that while this is the first game of their season, and technically our college gridiron season doesn’t start until next weekend, this is not what you’re used to thinking of as a “pre-season” game.
This counts on the teams’ records, and Rice especially will use this opportunity to play a highly-ranked team in a highly-visible game (telecast back home) to show whatever they can muster against Stanford today.
Expect the Rice Owls especially to show whatever they have in their “bag of tricks”. Having said that, the Cardinal sports bigger linemen and better skill players, and by the fourth quarter it should be a fairly definitive victory for the favourites.
Here’s hoping those of you interested in the American cross between rugby and footy (with a little traditional football and a little basketball thrown in) enjoy the opportunity to watch it being played by two top-division teams, even if one is a significant favourite.
If you’re not used to the game, I highly recommend tagging onto a source of information as you watch, either through a radio broadcast or a friend or acquaintance, who can clue you in to the nuances and the unfamiliar rules.
The basics are simple, and not unlike rugby: ground acquisition through physical imposition, except the skill levels more closely resemble the high-flying marks of the AFL than the NRL.
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