To those lauding Stanford as the most physical, up-and-coming, hard-hitting, smash-mouth, opportunistic and energetic team in the Pac-10:

It's not October 6, 2007. No, that day passed a long, long time ago.

Four hundred and ten days, to be exact. But no matter how long ago that fateful day was, it seems no one in the college football community can put that page on the calendar out of their mind's eye when it comes to the Cardinal.

Perhaps rightfully so. After all, on that day, Stanford accomplished something truly historic.

By now, you know about arguably the biggest upset in college football history, the day the Cardinal marched into USC's Coliseum as a 42-point underdog and emerged a one-point victor.

You've heard about how backup Tavita Pritchard braved the hostile crowd to become a superhero in Palo Alto. You've heard about the consecutive fourth-down conversions on Stanford's final drive: the fourth-and-18 conversion to Richard Sherman that kept the drive alive, and the fourth-and-nine touchdown to Mark Bradford to bag the win.

And now, you've heard about how Stanford is on the precipice of turning its program around.

But, guess what? One major upset does not a program make. Not in the slightest.

Sure, there are other significant signs of progress. Aside from beating the Trojans, the Cardinal has begun changing the nature of its team, progressing from a previous aura of losing into unbridled optimism.

Positivism has manifested in the form of coach Jim Harbaugh, who has dismantled the relics of the Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris eras, trading those haggard leaders for a chiseled, commanding head-of-state.

And there's junior runner Toby Gerhart, who with 1,033 rushing yards is only 52 short of becoming the Cardinal's all-time single-season rushing leader.

Yet even with Harbaugh guiding his players out of darkness and Gerhart running into daylight, this team, on the whole, has not accomplished much.

As everyone waxes wildly about the progression of the program, while the media celebrates the Cardinal return, everyone has seemingly forgotten about one important area of improvement:

Results.

Aside from the upset, Stanford has accomplished strikingly little over the last two years.

Since 2007, the Cardinal has won a total of nine games. And lost 14.

Not exactly the record of a program that has made it to the top of the mountain. In fact, four of the nine wins could be thrown out-Washington and Washington State this year, San Jose State twice.

This year, Stanford boasts only one win on the road. One.

Though Cal has brought the same number of road wins back to Berkeley this year, the Bears' brutal schedule is a valid excuse-losses at Maryland (potential ACC champions), USC (probable BCS team), and Oregon State (likely Pac-10 champions).

Stanford? Their road losses have come against slightly less than stellar competition: Arizona State. TCU. Notre Dame. UCLA.

Sure, they came close in two of those games, but in the standings, close doesn't amount to anything.

In fact, Stanford remains a poor man's Cal in more ways than road performance. Though Bears fans may bemoan the undying Kevin Riley versus Nate Longshore debate, at least they have two quarterbacks who are statistically above average.

The same can't be said about Pritchard, who despite his 9-to-10 touchdown-to-interception ratio and meager 120 yards passing per game, has Harbaugh's unwavering confidence.

So forgive me if I have a hard time believing that a team five losses below .500 over the last two years with a subpar signal caller is ready to be deemed the most physical team in the West Coast's premier conference. Feels like a bit of a stretch.

Linebacker Clinton Snyder and cornerback Wopamo Osaisai scoffed at that notion, pointing to personal foul penalties as the culprit for the physical identity. Snyder even called the moniker a simple "misunderstanding."

Some might say the same thing about the turnaround of Stanford football as a whole.

Tags: BIG GAME, KEVIN RILEY, JEFF TEDFORD, CAL FOOTBALL