B4 | Saturday, October 27, 2012 | The Union

FOOTBALL

Raiders, Chiefs get set to renew rivalry out at Arrowhead

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two teams floundering near the bot-tom of the standings, meeting in late October, shouldn’t be enough to stoke the passions of fan bases weary of losing.

Unless it’s the Chiefs and Raiders.

There are few fiercer rivalries than this AFC West matchup of teams with proud traditions that have fallen on the hardest of times. This will be their 107th meeting, and so rarely has so little been on the line when they’ve met this early in a season.

The Raiders are 2-4 after ral-lying for an overtime win over the Jaguars last Sunday, while the Chiefs got a much needed week off following a miserable 1-5 start.

“Any game, you’re always des-perate to get a win,” Raiders defen-sive tackle Richard Seymour said, “and you can throw the records out in this game, when you look at the Raiders and Chiefs. It’s always hard-fought football and I don’t expect anything less this Sunday.”

Hard-fought might be a relative description this time, though.

The Raiders have won five

straight at Arrowhead Stadium, but they haven’t won on the road since the last time they visited Kansas City last December. That includes a 35-13 rout at Miami and a 37-6 spanking by Peyton Manning and the Broncos earlier this season.

Of course, the Chiefs haven’t ex-actly been defending the home turf.

Kansas City is 3-10 over its last 13 games at Arrowhead, once re-garded as the loudest and most in-timidating venue in the NFL. That includes blowout losses to Atlanta and San Diego and a 9-6 defeat to Baltimore that only Bronko Nagurski could have loved.

Things have been so bad that Chiefs fans hired an airplane to tow a banner at their last home game asking for the general man-ager to be fired and the quarterback to be benched.

So in many ways, the crowd on Sunday has the potential to be hos-tile toward everyone.

“I don’t know there’s any ad-vantage to be had,” said first-year Raiders coach Dennis Allen. “When we kick the ball off on Sunday, it’ll be our players trying to execute against the chiefs’ play-ers, and whoever executes best will probably win the game.”

BY DAVE SKRETTAAP Sports Writer

■■ SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS

■■ STANFORD CARDINAL■■ CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEARS

■■ OAKLAND RAIDERS■■ SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS

AP photo

FIGHTING FOR MOORE: Raiders wide receiver Denarius Moore runs against Jaguars strong safety Chris Prosinski Oct. 21 in Oakland.

Stanford tries to stay focused vs Wash. St.

Niners pounding opponents with ground game

STANFORD — A power running game and a dominant de-fense against an Air Raid offense that has yet to take flight.

The styles of Stanford and Washington State couldn’t be more different. As of now, neither are their places in the Pac-12 North Division race.

The No. 19 Cardinal (5-2, 3-1) look to stay in control of their league title hopes when they host the Cougars on Saturday, begin-ning two straight games against far inferior opponents than they’ve faced in recent weeks. Washington State (2-5, 0-4) is still winless in Pac-12 play under new coach Mike Leach and has four lousy losses in a row.

With no margin for error in the conference, that’s all the motivation Stanford needs starting a stretch

against cellar dwellers Washington State and Colorado (1-6, 1-3) be-fore matchups with seventh-ranked Oregon State and at No. 2 Oregon.

“We’re still able to meet all our goals,” Stanford quarterback Josh

Nunes said. “We just need to keep winning. Every game is going to be a big game from here on out.”

The Cardinal defense has been dominant for all but one game this season: a 54-48 overtime victory

against Arizona on Oct. 6, when Nunes rallied Stanford from a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter. They allowed 617 total yards — including 491 yards pass-ing — against Rich Rodriguez’s aerial offense and struggled to keep up with the fast pace.

The offense still has been mis-take-prone, too.

Stanford’s 21-3 win at rival California last week could have been — and perhaps should have been — even more one-sided after the Cardinal outrushed the Golden Bears 252 to 3 yards. Nunes threw an interception and lost a fumble, and Jordan Williamson missed two field goals.

“We’re not nearly as good as we can be,” Stanford fullback Ryan Hewitt said. “That alone is what should drive us. We haven’t put to-gether a game that’s even close to four quarters of good football.”

SANTA CLARA — The San Francisco 49ers are beating up opponents with a power rushing attack, and nobody’s enjoying it more than the big bodies leading the way up front.

A physical offensive line fea-turing 2010 first-round draft picks Mike Iupati and Anthony Davis has established itself as a force in the trenches, opening holes for a ground game that ranks second in the NFL in yards rushing and first in rushing average.

Seattle entered last week’s game with the NFL’s second-ranked rushing defense, but the 49ers blasted through the Seahawks for 175 yards to high-light a 13-6 slugfest victory that

put San Francisco alone atop the NFC West at 5-2.

That kind of performance has become typical for the 49ers, who have rushed for 175 yards or more

four times already this season and look to do it again Monday night at Arizona in another key divi-sional game.

San Francisco’s line is expect-ing another physical battle against an Arizona defensive front that features Darnell Dockett and Calais Campbell, who said ear-lier this week that the 49ers are a team that both he and Dockett

“really hate with a passion.” The Niners have held the

upper hand in several of those kinds of battles this season. San Francisco’s five offensive line

starters average 6-foot-5 and 317 pounds, and they pack a punch.

“We’re big guys leaning on you all game,” Davis said Friday. “We just do our job, and it wears you out. It’s just natural it hap-pens like that. It’s just one will against another, and some guys are tougher than other guys.”

Davis and Iupati have started every game for the 49ers since

they were drafted, becoming in 2010 just the third pair of rookie offensive linemen to start every game since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978. Since then, they have set the tone of physicality for San Francisco’s line.

Particularly Iupati. A bruiser at left guard, Iupati

has gained a reputation as one of the top run-blocking guards in the league. Second-year offensive coordinator Greg Roman said Iupati “had the best game since I’ve been here” during the win against Seattle.

“He just played lights out,” Roman said. “He was just domi-nating people. He’s an athletic, explosive guy and he enjoys it. He’s got some physical tools that are rare, and they were on display.”

BY ANTONIO GONZALEZAP Sports Writer

ASSOCIATED PRESS

AP photo

BIG GAME. BIG ARM: Stanford quarterback Josh Nunes throws against California during the first half Oct. 20 in Berkeley.

Cal, Utah enter weekend looking to shake offensive woes

SALT LAKE CITY — The jump to the Pac-12 Conference isn’t looking so good right now for Utah, which instead of con-tending for the South Division title has started 0-4 in league play for the second straight season.

The question is whether the Utes can turn it around, starting at home against a Cal team that has seen its own ups and downs.

“We all know we’ve got to win,” said Utah freshman quar-terback Travis Wilson, who makes his third start of the sea-son Saturday night. “Everyone on this team wants to make it to a bowl game. . I think one win will turn it around.”

One loss, that one to Cal, jumpstarted the Utes last season as they bounced back to win four straight and five of six, including a Sun Bowl victory.

Injuries to the offensive line could make it tougher this year for Utah (2-5, 0-4).

Plus, Cal (3-5, 2-3) still has its share of playmakers, even if they have struggled at times.

“They’ve got talent across the board, they just haven’t been able to put it together,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

Case in point, Cal beat then-No. 25 UCLA and won at Washington State, only to lose 21-3 last week against Stanford, now No. 19.

“We came off two big wins and an emotional loss,” Cal coach Jeff Tedford said. “It puts a knot in my stomach to talk about last week. . We took our lumps; now it’s time to move forward.”

While Utah is on its third

quarterback, Cal senior Zach Maynard is in his second year starting.

But it hasn’t been easy. He has been sacked 33 times, inter-cepted eight and lost two of eight fumbles.

Maynard still has one of the Pac-12’s top receivers in junior Keenan Allen, who needs just three catches to become Cal’s all-time receptions leader. Allen’s electrifying style is evidenced by two of his touchdowns this sea-son being nominated for Play of the Year.

Like Utah’s offense (last in the Pac-12), Cal’s needs a spark after being held to a season-low 3 yards rushing against Stanford.

“It’s not just one guy getting beat every single play. It’s right tackle here, left guard there, quarterback here ... the whole offense,” said left guard Jordan Rigsbee.

A year ago, Utah native Isi Sofele rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown in the 34-10 Cal win at Berkeley.

This season, the Golden Bears’ top three rushers, C.J. Anderson, Sofele and Brendan Bigelow, have combined for 1,210 yards — nearly double that of Utah’s top trio.

That said, Whittingham is expected to give running back Kelvin York more opportunities after he averaged 5.2 yards a carry in a 21-7 loss to Oregon State.

Also indicative of Utah’s of-fensive struggles is the fact that a tight end, sophomore Jake Murphy, is the Utes’ leading re-ceiver with 22 catches for 239 yards. It is the first time a tight end has led Utah in receiving since 1989.

BY LYNN DEBRUINAP Sports Writer

“We’re big guys leaning on you all game.”— ANTHONY DAVIS,

San Francisco offensive lineman

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Arizona’s gigantic defensive end Calais

Campbell talked this week about how he “hates” the San Francisco 49ers “with a passion.”

That kind of remark might provide bulletin board material if this was some college show-down. These NFC West rivals have played each other enough to know what feelings are and aren’t involved, and that talk is usually just talk.

Besides, Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson noted, Campbell “doesn’t have a filter on his mouth.”

“Hate is a strong word,” San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith said. “I mean, they’re a division opponent. Obviously there’s a lot of history there, we play them twice a year. Great ri-valry; hate is a word I wouldn’t use.”

Hate-speak aside, what mat-ters Monday night is what hap-pens when two of the best de-fenses in the NFL take the field, the 49ers (5-2) looking to widen their lead in the division, the Cardinals (4-3) trying to end a three-game skid and move into a tie with San Francisco atop what’s become one of the league’s toughest divisions.

“We have some bad blood between the two teams with the success that they’ve had in recent years and we had before that,” Arizona quarterback John Skelton said. “It’s just a chance to get back on track after these three games that we lost. We win this game and it kind of rights all wrongs.”

Wilson has a hard time call-ing this a rivalry when the 49ers

have won five of the last six in the series. That victory, though, came in their last meeting, 21-19 in Glendale last Dec. 11. It was one of only three regular-season losses for San Francisco. In that game, Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb took a knee to the head in the first series and was replaced by Skelton, who finished

out the season at the position. With Kolb now out for the

second game in a row with rib and chest injuries, Skelton will be at the controls again Monday.

He threw for 282 yards and three touchdowns but was in-tercepted twice against San Francisco last year.

Smith was 18 for 37 for

185 yards in that loss and the Cardinals held the 49ers to 90 yards rushing. But it still was close, thanks to three Arizona turnovers.

“I feel like every time we play each other these are just physical battles,” Smith said. “Most of the time they are coming down to the end, and they are hard-fought games.”

San Francisco (5-2) is coming off a 13-6 victory at home over Seattle, the kind of win that’s become common in a division dominated by defense. Arizona (4-3) lost 21-14 at Minnesota when Adrian Peterson rushed for 153 yards.

But Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said he could live with that kind of stat because the Vikings managed just 209 yards overall.

“I’ll take 200 yards total of-fense this week as well,” he said. “I don’t care how they get it. If they want to run for 199 and pass for 1 yard, if we can hold them to 200 yards, I’ll be happy.”

Slowing the run game, obvi-ously, is again Arizona’s No. 1 tar-get in a game that will be played beneath the desert stars if, in a rare instance, the University of Phoenix Stadium’s roof is open, as has been speculated.

“These guys like to pound the ball,” Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson said, “bringing in big offensive linemen to re-place the tight ends and things like that. These guys, they do a lot of trick-’em stuff on offense to run those quick traps and get into the second level fast.”

The 49ers are second in the NFL in rushing thanks to long-time Cardinals nemesis Frank Gore, whose 601 yards rush-ing rank fifth in the league. His 131 yards last weekend against Seattle, on just 16 carries, were a season high. Gore has a more-than-capable backup in second-year back Kendall Hunter, who’s gained 258 yards, averaging 5.2 yards per carry.

San Francisco brings the No. 1 ranked defense in the league. Arizona’s is rated No. 7.

BY BOB BAUMAP Sports Writer

49ers’ rivalry with Cardinals heads to Monday Night

On the big stage

AP photo

ROOM TO RUN: 49ers wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. looks downfield for running room against the Seahawks during the first half Oct. 18 in San Francisco.