GLENDALE, Az. -- This was the day that Andrew Luck and David Shaw parted company, their mutual needs replaced by exigencies of the day.
Shaw is a Stanford man. Luck is about to be was a Stanford man. And their final collaboration was intended to be a masterpiece as well as a tribute to a soon-to-be-bygone era. And it wasif you could ignore the ending.
But you couldnt ignore it. Stanfords grandest era of football ended with a deadened thud, with a 41-38 overtime loss to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl. Two missed field goals by Cardinal freshman Jordan Williamson, of 35 and 43 yards, one at the end of regulation and the other in overtime, and a 22-yard field goal by Quinn Sharp put the boot in a game, a season, and the Luck Era.
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SIGN UP HERE That is, if you believe Andrew Luck will be defined by the Fiesta Bowl. He will be, of course, but not by its outcome, but by his performance. On the national stage he couldnt command against Oregon, he owned it fully against OSU, showing not why he should have won the Heisman Trophy (that rightly went to Robert Griffin III of Baylor), but why he is so coveted as the first pick in the NFL Draft.
Because he just knows how to do This Thing.
Twenty-six completions in 30 throws, for 344 yards and two touchdowns . . . a series of elegant throws to Griff Whalen, Ty Montgomery and Zach Ertz . . . the brilliant work of junior running back Stepfan Taylor . . . it was the superb performance that convinced whatever doubters Luck might have gathered during the year that he is indeed as advertised.
Luck will be an Indianapolis Colt, at least for a few moments. He is expected to make a significant fortune, and circumstances permitting, a name for himself on the grandest and most soulless stage, the NFL.
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Shaw, for his part, gets the opportunity to show that his chops as a coach were not entirely dependent upon luck, or Luck. It will not be easy, as Lucks do not grow freely in the wild. In this way, Shaw will be in the same position Jeff Tedford was after Aaron Rodgers left Cal to be snubbed by Mike Nolan.
But as long as Shaw can find the odd Taylor here and there, keep his credit good at tightends.com, and bring in the kind of quality offensive linemen that shielded Luck from harm, he will thrive, as Tedford has for much of his tenure at Cal. He will be cursed for not replacing Luck, as though that were a simple matter, but thats how it plays in the bigs.
Luck, on the other hand, has now lost control of his professional world, while cashing in on that uncertainty. He will be taken by a team he knows little about, and he will either make his stand with a new team under new management, or be traded for a boatload of draft choices and play for a completely different one.
And then the real caprice begins.
Thus, Monday, for one last go-round, he and Shaw could collaborate freely, and make no mistakeit was a collaboration.
The Cardinal started slowly, as if to make sense of the Cowboy defense, but finding a wide open Ty Montgomery down the middle of the field for a 53-yard touchdown on Stanfords third possession seemed to open Lucks eyes to grander possibilities.
And from that moment, it became your standard Pac-12 bowl gamehaymakers galore, with optional tackling. The sides exchanged drives and touchdowns, and the greatest revelation of all was Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon, who may have positioned himself into the draft spot right behind Luck. His speed, grace and hands drew comparisons to Calvin Johnson, and his touchdown catches of 43, 67 and 17 yards exposed the Stanford secondary to a level of player that doesnt exist in their world west of the Pecos.
And after a brief respite in the second half in which defense succeeded, the game ended with more touchdown exchangesTaylor here, Blackmon there, in a game that could have gone on this way well into tomorrow.
As it was, it ended badly in overtime, a harshly unfulfilling way to end a game of this level, played as it was between two desperately equal teams, and played as it was as the final collaboration of a glorious era of Stanford football.
This game did not define Andrew Luck or David Shaw because of the final three seconds of regulation. But it did because it showed the world what it thought it knew in September, then chose to doubt in November.
That Luck is all things to all football fans, the quarterback with everything one could ask in a quarterback, and in an era.