Thirty miles of pavement separate two of the most powerful universities in the world. Berkeley on the east side of the bay — public, urban, activist, Nobel Prizes. Stanford to the south on the peninsula — private, sprawling, entrepreneurial, Silicon Valley. The campuses are close enough that faculty cross between them regularly, that research collaborations span both institutions, that the same Bay Area families send their children to both schools.
And then November arrives, and none of that matters.
Stanford leads the all-time football series 66–51–11 through 128 games. Stanford won the 2025 Big Game 31–10. Cal won four consecutive from 2021 to 2024 — an accomplishment achieved only four times in series history. None of it ever settles the argument, because the argument was never really about football.
How It Started
The first Big Game was played on March 19, 1892, at Haight Street Grounds in San Francisco. Stanford won 14–10. Ten thousand tickets were printed. Twenty thousand people showed up. Herbert Hoover — a Stanford student who later became the 31st President of the United States and was manager of both the baseball and football teams — helped organize the inaugural game alongside his friend Cal manager Herbert Lang. When twice as many fans as expected arrived, Hoover and Lang scrambled to find pots, bowls, and any available receptacles to collect the admission fees.
The series moved to late November by 1898. From 1906 to 1918, both schools played rugby instead of football, after both institutions dropped football due to concerns about violence and player fatalities. Stanford switched back to football in 1919, and the game has been played as such every year since — except from 1943 to 1945, when Stanford shut down its football program entirely due to World War II. The “Big Game” name was officially adopted in 1902.
In 1900, the most tragic moment in the rivalry’s history occurred at the Thanksgiving Day Big Game in San Francisco. Hundreds of fans had climbed onto the roof of a nearby glass factory to watch. The rooftop collapsed, killing 23 people and injuring more than 100. It remains the deadliest accident to kill spectators at a U.S. sporting event.
Stanford leads the all-time series 66–51–11. Stanford’s longest winning streak is 9 (2010–2018). Cal won four straight from 2021 to 2024. Both schools joined the ACC together in 2024, and the Big Game remains a guaranteed annual matchup — in even-numbered years in Berkeley, in odd-numbered years at Stanford.
The Stanford Axe
No rivalry trophy in college football has a history quite like the Stanford Axe.
It began as a prop. On April 13, 1899, Stanford yell leader Billy Erb debuted a standard 15-inch lumberman’s axe at a campus rally ahead of a baseball series against Cal, using it to decapitate a straw dummy dressed in Cal’s blue and gold colors while leading chants of “Give ’em the axe, the axe, the axe!” Two days later, on April 15, the axe appeared at the baseball game itself in San Francisco. Stanford yell leaders paraded it and used it to chop up blue and gold ribbon after good plays.
Then Cal students stole it. A chase unfolded through the streets of San Francisco, pursued first by Stanford students and then by the San Francisco police. The axe handle was cut off during the pursuit. Everett Brown, the primary thief, escaped by buying a dress from a pushcart peddler at the foot of Market Street and walking onto the ferry as part of a couple. The axe blade went to Berkeley, where it stayed for 31 years — displayed at annual Big Game rallies but otherwise kept hidden.
In 1930, a group of 21 Stanford students known thereafter as the Immortal 21 pulled off an elaborate operation to recapture the axe from Berkeley, where it was being heavily guarded. They brought it back to Palo Alto. In 1933, both schools agreed to end the cycle of thefts: the Stanford Axe would become the official trophy for the winner of the annual Big Game, mounted on a large wooden plaque listing all previous game scores. Since 1933, Cal students have stolen the Axe three more times and Stanford students four more times — the most recent theft occurring in 1973. In the modern era, both the Stanford Axe Committee and the UC Rally Committee guard the trophy year-round.
Stanford has held the Axe 48 times to Cal’s 38 in the trophy era since 1933.
The handover ceremony — called “The Stare Down” — takes place at midfield with two minutes remaining, when the Axe is brought to the 50-yard line and representatives from both committees wait for the final whistle. The score of the 1982 game on the trophy changes depending on who holds the Axe — and the reason for that is The Play.
The Play
November 20, 1982. Game 85. Stanford led 20–19. Four seconds remained. John Elway — who would go on to win two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos and enter both the Pro Football and College Football Halls of Fame — had just led a drive into field goal range. Mark Harmon’s 35-yard field goal put Stanford ahead. A Cardinal victory would have earned an invitation to the Hall of Fame Classic bowl game.
Stanford special teams coach Fred von Appen called for a squib kick. Cal had 10 men on the field — one short of regulation, still legal. Kevin Moen received the kick and the sequence began: five lateral passes across 57 yards, each one keeping the play alive as Stanford’s coverage closed in.
Meanwhile, the Stanford Band — believing the game was over — had already marched onto the field. Dozens of musicians in Cardinal red stood in the end zone when Moen caught the final lateral. He ran through the scattering woodwinds and brass and collided with trombone player Gary Tyrrell at the goal line. The touchdown was ruled good. Cal won 25–20.
Elway completed his college career without a bowl game. He was bitter about it for years. “This was an insult to college football,” he said. A Pac-10 official reviewing enhanced footage under modern replay standards in 2007 concluded that the fifth lateral “clearly appears forward” — suggesting the play should have been called back. “I would be tempted to reverse it,” he added, “then go out and get the motor running in my car.”
When Stanford holds the Axe, the Axe Committee changes the 1982 result on the plaque to 20–19 Stanford. When Cal has it, the UC Rally Committee changes it back to the official result: California 25, Stanford 20. The dispute that fuels this alternating score has been going on for more than 40 years and will continue for as long as both schools play football.
The Games That Also Define It
1924: Both teams entered unbeaten with the Rose Bowl on the line. Stanford’s star Ernie Nevers was sidelined by injuries. Stanford trailed 20–6 with under five minutes left and rallied to force a 20–20 tie, earning the Rose Bowl bid.
1990 — “The Payback”: Stanford trailed 25–18 with just over two minutes left. Stanford scored a touchdown, then attempted a two-point conversion — which failed — and still needed to kick an onside kick, recover it, and score. Stanford did all three. John Hopkins kicked a 39-yard field goal into the wind with five seconds left for a 27–25 Stanford victory. Stanford fans called it “The Revenge of The Play.”
2013: No. 10 Stanford won 63–13, setting records for most points, largest margin, and most combined points in Big Game history.
2019: Cal trailed 20–17 with 2:23 remaining. Cal quarterback Chase Garbers engineered a six-play, 75-yard drive, scoring the go-ahead touchdown himself. Cal linebacker Evan Weaver sealed it with a fourth-and-one stop on the Cardinal’s final possession. The Axe returned to Berkeley after nearly a decade away.
2024 — “98 Yards With My Boys”: Stanford led 21–7 entering the fourth quarter. Cal drove 98 yards for the go-ahead touchdown, including a fourth-down conversion deep in their own territory. Fernando Mendoza’s emotional postgame interview — “98 yards with my boys” — became immediately iconic. Cal won 24–21. The drive is one of the most celebrated in Big Game history.
2025: Stanford 31, Cal 10, at Stanford. Two fumble return touchdowns. A record 6,481 students scanned in. Stanford’s first win in the rivalry since 2020 and their first home win since 2017. The Axe returned to Palo Alto.
Two Institutions
Cal is the flagship of the University of California system — a public land-grant research university founded in 1868 with a mission of public access. 107 Nobel laureates are affiliated with the university. The Free Speech Movement was born at Berkeley in 1964. Cal produces activists, scientists, engineers, and artists who have shaped how the world thinks.
Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford on their 8,000-acre horse ranch in Palo Alto — still called “The Farm.” Its endowment is one of the largest in higher education. Stanford has won more NCAA team championships than any university in the country — 138 team national championships — and sits adjacent to Sand Hill Road, the center of venture capital in the United States. Stanford produces founders, CEOs, and investors who have shaped how the world works.
Both institutions are genuine pillars of human knowledge. The rivalry between them is the rivalry between two different answers to the same question: what is a university for?
The Mascots and the Band
Stanford’s teams are officially called “The Cardinal” — the color, not the bird. Cal’s mascot is Oski: a grinning, vintage bear in a yellow cardigan whose student identity is a fiercely guarded secret. Stanford’s unofficial mascot is the Stanford Tree — an annually redesigned, handmade costume built from scratch each year by a new student from whatever materials they choose. The same band that marched onto the field in 1982 has been doing things their own way ever since.
NIL and How Fans Are Now Part of It
Both programs now compete in the ACC, which in 2025 restructured its revenue distribution to tie 60 percent of distributions to five-year TV viewership metrics. The Big Game is among the most-watched regular-season college football games on the West Coast, and its annual viewership directly shapes both programs’ financial positioning.
California’s Olympic sports programs at Cal and Stanford are among the most decorated in the country. Cal and Stanford together form California’s elite Olympic pipeline — Cal through swimming, crew, track and field, and gymnastics; Stanford through its 138 NCAA team championships spanning swimming, tennis, gymnastics, golf, and more. California’s universities send more athletes to the Summer Olympics than most countries, and the 2028 Los Angeles Games will showcase athletes who trained at both Berkeley and Palo Alto.
Both programs operate under California’s NIL laws — California was the first state to pass NIL legislation with the Fair Pay to Play Act in 2019, which pressured the NCAA to open NIL nationally and established athlete-friendly standards that remain among the most progressive in the country. The Bay Area market gives athletes from both schools access to technology companies, venture capital partnerships, and entertainment industry deals that programs in other markets cannot replicate.
Stanford has 138 NCAA team championships — the most of any school nationally — with particular dominance in swimming, tennis, gymnastics, and golf, plus consistent strength across football, basketball, and volleyball. The proximity to Silicon Valley gives Cardinal athletes access to technology company endorsements and startup partnerships. Stanford fans can back Cardinal athletes directly through RallyFuel, supporting a program whose athletes benefit from one of the largest university endowments in the world and a Silicon Valley alumni network unlike any other.
Cal’s NIL ecosystem draws on a robust alumni base including industry leaders in technology, finance, and entertainment. Cal has produced 107 Nobel laureates, NFL and NBA players including Aaron Rodgers and Jason Kidd, and Olympic athletes across swimming, crew, and track. Cal fans can back Golden Bears athletes directly through RallyFuel.
RallyFuel’s weekly college football predictions game lets fans earn points and direct them toward NIL support. The schools leaderboard tracks total fan-driven contributions — a live measure of which fanbase is more mobilized each November. The Trophy Case tracks Heisman and major award contenders; John Elway finished his Stanford career without a bowl game because of The Play, and the Big Game has shaped the Heisman race in multiple seasons across its 128-game history.
Why It Never Ends
Stanford leads 66–51–11. Cal won four straight and the “98 Yards With My Boys” drive. Stanford won 31–10 in 2025 and took the Axe back. The Immortal 21 recaptured it in 1930. Everett Brown escaped across San Francisco Bay in a dress in 1899. Gary Tyrrell is still the most famous trombone player in the history of American sport. The 1982 score changes on the plaque depending on who holds the Axe.
The Big Game’s score in 1982 changes depending on who has the trophy. That is the right way to honor a rivalry that has never really been about the score.
