Cal's powerhouse football teams led to the construction of The House That Andy Built over 100 years ago
As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century, we count down the Top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.In the early afternoon of Saturday, November 24, 1923, the kickoff of the 29th Big Game between Cal and Stanford marked the official opening of Memorial Stadium, which remains Cal’s home football venue today.
Amazingly, the stadium was ready for use in just 11 months, allowing it to make its debut in the 29th Big Game on November 24, 1923, between an 8-0-1 Cal squad and a 7-1 Stanford team. A crowd of more than 73,000, most of them dressed in their Sunday finest, jammed into a stadium that had an official capacity of 72,609. Approximately 7,000 additional fans viewed the game from the hill adjacent to the stadium, christening Tightwad Hill on Memorial Stadium’s very first day.
The game itself was a bore, and the newspapers the next day characterized it as such. Cal managed just 81 yards of total offense, and Stanford had just 61. The only touchdown was scored when Cal’s Babe Horrell blocked an Ernie Nevers punt and recovered it in the end zone. The Bears later added a safety for a 9-0 victory that completed the fourth of five consecutive undefeated seasons for Smith and the Bears.
The largest crowd at Memorial Stadium came on September 27, 1947, when 83,000 people squeezed into the stadium to see Cal beat Navy 14-7. The record was tied on November 22, 1952, when 83,000 watched Cal beat Stanford 26-0. Interestingly both Cal and Stanford had losing conference records heading into that 1952 game. But college football was seldom televised in those days, and almost never on the West Coast.
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