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This Week in Stanford Football History: Big Game Week
- SFAU and Jim Rutter
- Nov 20
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 21
“Throwback Thursday”
November 18, 2000: Stanford 36, California 30 (OT)
Yes, it is difficult to process that a full quarter of a century has passed, but in the 103rd Big Game, played in front of 67,500 polarized fans at Cal’s Memorial Stadium, Stanford defeated arch-rival California 36-30 in overtime, the first such extra time victory in the 108-year rivalry series up to that point.
QB Randy Fasani delivered his third touchdown pass of the game, finding fullback Casey Moore for the 25-yard game-winner. The Dirty Golden Bears were losing all their hair, caught off guard by a timely play-call. It was Casey’s first catch of the game and only his eighth reception of the 2000 season. It represented the second-biggest play made by a “Moore” since tight end Bob Moore made the famous “mad dog” catch from Jim Plunkett against Ohio State in the 1971 Rose Bowl!
Who would have thought a Stanford fullback would be a hero of the Big Game for the third year in a row? In 1998, 220-pound junior special teams standout Emory Brock had come out of nowhere to produce 100 yards on just two receptions, including a rather unlikely 61-yard touchdown! In 1999, it had been our same Casey Moore exploding through a huge hole up the middle and outrunning everyone, including speedy Troy Walters (which doesn’t sound possible, does it?), for a shocking, spectacular, stupendous 94-yard TD score that essentially sent the Cardinal back to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for the first time in 28 years!
The game-determining score in OT was without question one of the most memorable college career highlights for the spotlight-subjected Randy Fasani. Like a chosen very few, including Jim Plunkett, John Elway, John Paye, Scott Frost, Chad Hutchinson, and his own talented teammate, Joe Borchard, Randy was a big, strong, fast, rifled-armed specimen! He was the very prototype of a superior high school athlete over which every college football scout drools.
The 2000 season, the sixth of seven under head coach Tyrone Willingham, had opened with sky-high hopes of Stanford repeating as Pac-10 Conference champions. Fasani, a junior from the Sacramento area whose parents both attended Cal, was finally taking the reins, having arrived on campus as the top quarterback and #1 recruit in the nation, a first-team Parade and USA Today All-American. The emergence of 1999 All-Conference QB Todd Husak had limited Fasani’s playing time opportunities to the point where #12 actually logged some minutes at linebacker and was in on special teams during his sophomore season.
The 2000 “Millennial Edition” Cardinal had come up with outstanding home wins over Texas and USC, but a rash of injuries had taken its toll and the Stanford squad had limped into the ’00 Big Game with a disappointing record of 4-6 and had been forced to accept the indignity of postseason bowl game ineligibility. Nevertheless, a spirit-restoring win against Cal was still on the table!
In front of a rowdy crowd of ill will-wishing Bearbackers and with everything on the line, Randy faked a hand-off to Moore, dropped back, and delivered a clutch, perfectly thrown pass up the middle to a wide-open #33, a supreme surgical strike for the ages, to scalp summarily his school’s traditional rival. The incomparable gridiron glory that every aspiring young athlete dreams about as a seven-year-old, slinging the rock in his back yard and on elementary school football fields would come to Fasani and Moore, as the fullback who had yet to be targeted all day, brought it in for the win. It was a one-second execution of skill and determination forged during years of practice, hundreds of film sessions, and thousands of reps. The average guy thinks that hey, he too would have thrown a perfect ball, made a perfect catch, but it “ain’t necessarily so”. It takes muscle memory and poise, in the face of a desperate pass rush, to come through in the moment! The “average guy” would have panicked, thrown high or wide, or been sacked into Tomorrowland. Like their fellow teammate tandem of QB Chris Lewis and WR Jamien McCullum, who had connected on a dramatic walk-off TD to terrorize the Trojans earlier that season, Fasani and Moore would be heroes, even if just for one day….one very….“Big” day!
Moore now resides in the upper echelons of Big Game lore, a certified “Cal-Killer” with two touchdowns in 1999 and two more in 2000. Take that, Oski, and like it!
Casey & Jim | Nov 20, 2025
