As a Cal grad, you're not supposed to be envious about anything done at Stanfurd, but when it comes to money and getting things done, give the Cardinal credit. For proof, just look at these passages from the Mercury News today.

Plans for the new stadium were approved by Stanford trustees Monday. If all goes smoothly, demolition of the existing stadium will begin immediately after the last home game in November. University officials are not predicting a finish date, but there is an unofficial goal of not missing any football games in 2006 by driving the project at breakneck speed.

And...

Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour said Tuesday that the project won't begin after the 2005 season as some had hoped, but she said it's likely construction will begin immediately after the 2006 season.

The plan is to complete one phase of the project (such as renovating the east rim of the stadium) in time to play the 2007 season in the stadium. Immediately after the 2007 season, construction would continue on the rest of the project, with the goal of playing the 2009 season in the completed stadium. Cal would need to play the 2008 season at another site such as San Francisco's Monster Park.

The folks across the bay will work their construction crews around the clock to get things done in-between football seasons while angering Cal fans by not being able to guarantee seating at the Big Game when it's on the Farm.

Getting back to the point at hand, remodeling Memorial Stadium has been a pain for many years now and only got jump-started again due to the football team's recent success and the desire to keep Jeff Tedford. Meanwhile, Stanford seemingly has taken the public by surprise by dropping these plans on us. They claim to have had this planned for years as well but remember, as recently as last year, a rebuilt Stanford Stadium was supposed to be the epicenter for the 2012 Olympics, a vision much different than the 50,000 seat stadium they have proposed now.

Admittedly, the task is tougher for Cal. The law and business schools are part of the plans. Memorial sits on a fault line. There's only so much space to work with on Strawberry Canyon. UC bureaucracy is pretty much awful and money is tight. All told, it's going to cost up to $250 million compared to Stanford's $85 million.

But in all that time for the planning stages, Stanford has raised $60 million with little media coverage while Cal has raised only half that with the entire process playing out before our very eyes. Cal needs to get something out there to convince the big donors to donate or else they'll be the ones coming up with new delays for their donations before they disappear completely.