<p>GentlemanandScholar- rivalries are NOT based primarily on prestige. The Big Game record is 54-42-11 in Stanford's favor. Thus, Stanford's rise is not recent. Actually, recently Cal has been a lot better than Stanford (Jeff Tedford is awesome). Plus, they had The Play. Check out what Stanford students created and even distributed on the Cal campus after the game here <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/axecomm/history/daily_cal_82.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/group/axecomm/history/daily_cal_82.html</a>. That definitely was not based off prestige. Plus, Cal and USF (San Fran) have had (still have?) a big rivalry in basketball. I seriously doubt that one is all about prestige.</p>