Most people think of Condoleezza Rice as a former secretary of state and national security adviser, but she is a football fan at heart.
Since her days growing up in Alabama, where college football reigns supreme, the Birmingham native has kept a close eye on the the gridiron, especially at Stanford. Rice was hired by the university as an assistant professor in 1981, served as the school’s provost from 1993 to 1999, and now teaches political science in Palo Alto. In all her years following the Cardinal, Rice has never see seen a Stanford season like this season, The New York Times reports.
“This is in a whole different category,” Rice told the Times.
“We had a lot of success in the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, and that was very exciting,” Rice added. “But that’s nothing like what’s happened to Stanford football over the last two or three years. We’ve become one of those teams that’s a season-maker: If you beat us, it makes your season.”
Thanks to Heisman Trophy favorite Andrew Luck, Stanford extended its winning streak to 16 games with a 56-48 victory over USC on Saturday, a game that took three overtimes to complete. The winning streak is the longest in college football and moved Stanford up to No. 4 in the BCS Standings. If Stanford wins out, it has a realistsic opportunity to play for the BCS national championship.
