Here are Maurice Drew's comments on the week of 7-0 UCLA Bruins playing at the Stanford stadium:
Nighty, night: Stanford Stadium doesn't offer the intimidation of playing at Oregon's Autzen Stadium, but Bruins junior tailback Maurice Drew, who prepped at Concord De La Salle, said playing on the Farm offers other challenges.
"You're used to all these big stadiums, it's always loud and everything, but not at Stanford. It's never loud at Stanford. It seems like a high school game," Drew said. "The stadium is huge, but it's never filled up. It's not like it's a real away stadium. That's what gets people.
"You try to prepare for all this loud noise, but Stanford really doesn't get loud. It's just like a more a relaxed, mellow atmosphere. Football is supposed to be a big uproar, yelling and screaming. It kind of like lulls you to sleep."
Stanford Stadium holds 85,000 fans, but the Cardinal average a Pacific-10-Conference-low 30,217.
And there was Bob Toledo's comment just 4 years ago, on the week of 6-0 Bruins heading up to play in Palo Alto:
"You're used to all these big stadiums, it's always loud and everything, but not at Stanford. It's never loud at Stanford. It seems like a high school game," Drew said. "The stadium is huge, but it's never filled up. It's not like it's a real away stadium. That's what gets people.
"You try to prepare for all this loud noise, but Stanford really doesn't get loud. It's just like a more a relaxed, mellow atmosphere. Football is supposed to be a big uproar, yelling and screaming. It kind of like lulls you to sleep."
Stanford Stadium holds 85,000 fans, but the Cardinal average a Pacific-10-Conference-low 30,217.
Ex-UCLA coach Bob Toledo once said Stanford Stadium was like "playing football in a Safeway parking lot."
Of course we all know what happened at that "parking lot." Everyone needs to keep their trap shut this weekend and focus on this game, otherwise everything that has been built up this year, will dissipate in that Stanford "atmosphere." There is a reason why we haven't won at the Farm since 1997, and this is the year we figure out why, instead of demeaning their football stadium, where we haven't beaten them in 8 years. Toledo made that mistake 4 years ago, which eventually led to another end of the season meltdown, let's hope Dorrell and co. doesn't make that mistake yet again.Here is also Lonnie White's notes in the LA Times and Kuwada's from the OC Register. Among the highlights Mike McCloskey is 50-50 for Saturday's game (let's hope the kid is allright) and MJD may be also returning kick returns in higher frequency. Sounds pretty good to us. GO BRUINS.