Monday Morning Quarterback

In the most anticipated game of the season for Bay Area football fans, the Cal Bears manhandled the Stanford Cardinal, 41-6. J.J. Arrington put together yet another 100-yard game, but red-shirt freshman Marshawn Lynch stole the show, running for 122 yards -- including an electrifying 55-yard touchdown run -- and completing a 20-yard pass to for a score. Cal plays their makeup game on December 4th in Mississippi, but are otherwise at the mercy of the BCS ranking system in terms of securing a Rose or Orange Bowl bid -- if you can believe it, they can be knocked out of the BCS by Utah, Texas, Louisville or even Boise St. regardless of how they fare against Southern Miss.

The otherwise flawless game was marred near the end by some seriously poor sportmanship on the part of Stanford - in the third quarter, Leigh Torrence and Will Svitek both laid hits on Cal players after the play had been whistled dead, and in the fourth quarter Torrence, a fifth-year senior, blasted Bears return man Tom Mixon on a punt return after Mixon had clearly called for a fair catch -- only to be congratulated by his teammates on the sideline. The Cardinal can go home for the winter and dwell on their 4-7 record and the biggest loss to Cal in seven decades.

Of course we lead with Big Game news because, well, the Raiders and Niners stunk up the field on Sunday. And when we mean stunk up, we mean skunks with bad B.O. in a waste treatment settling pond next to a rendering plant. The 49ers got smacked around like Tampa Bay's red-headed stepchild 35-3, and the Raiders committed 8 penalties on their way to getting beaten by the Chargers for the second time this season, 23-17. We're not looking forward to writing this column after the college season winds down. The Raiders stumble to Denver and the Niners host Miami, and SFist will go out on a limb to say it looks like another black Sunday next weekend for Bay Area football fans.