Upset of Notre Dame a Study in Restraint : Stanford: The band (of course) went wild after big victory, but many had other things to do.

A roar went up across the Stanford campus last Saturday when Hal Ramey, play-by-play announcer for the Cardinal’s football games, announced that Notre Dame’s Derek Brown had been unable to hang onto a pass in the end zone, preserving a stunning Stanford victory.

The thrice-beaten Cardinal, winless away from home for three years, had upset No. 1-ranked Notre Dame, 36-31, at South Bend, Ind.

In the Bay Area, the Stanford band, making its way to a block party in Alameda, sat in a circle of cars in a supermarket parking lot, Ramey’s call on KCBS Radio blaring out of the cars’ speakers.

As the game ended, band members jumped onto the pavement and launched into “All Right Now,” the school’s unofficial fight song, playing it over and over as startled customers filed past them into the store.

It was a spontaneous celebration that lasted into the night.

Even in Berkeley, where California was playing San Jose State, the announcement of Stanford’s upset was greeted with warm applause.

But not everybody at Stanford shared in the Cardinal’s joy.

A junior political science major, Rob Tymoczko was working as an attendant in the weight room, which is only about a five-minute walk from Stanford Stadium, as the Cardinal rallied from a 24-7 deficit.

About 40 to 50 people were working out at the time, he said.

“Only two or three of us were paying attention to the game, and I had the (broadcast) up really loud,” Tymoczko said. “People were asking me to turn it down. They wanted me to put on some music.”

And when Stanford won?

“Absolutely nothing,” he said.

So, what has the mood been on campus in the week that followed the most shocking upset in college football this season?

“The mood of the campus is manic,” said Jody L. Maxmin, associate professor of art history and classics.

Maxmin is a fan.

Her class in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art includes several football players, among them quarterback Jason Palumbis and halfback Glyn Milburn, and last week she likened their task to that of the Greeks who rose up to repel the vast Persian Empire about 500 BC.

“It was the most improbable victory in the history of the Western world,” Maxmin said.

The odds faced by Stanford last week weren’t quite as long. Still, Maxmin said: “(Our) self-esteem was at stake.”

Others didn’t share Maxmin’s unbridled enthusiasm. They believed the victory to be slightly less significant.

“All it’s done,” band member Keith Cross said, “is to make the band want to write a letter to U.S. News and World Report to ask them to reconsider their rankings because as far as we know, in recent memory, Harvard hasn’t beaten a No. 1 team in anything.”

In its annual survey, released this month, U.S. News and World Report ranked Harvard as the nation’s No. 1 large-school university.

Stanford was No. 2.

Stanford, it seems, is still more interested in measuring itself against the Harvards of the world than the Notre Dames.

Demand for tickets to Saturday’s game against USC has not been extraordinary. Attendance in 86,019-seat Stanford Stadium is expected to fall more than 25,000 short of capacity. And about one-fourth of the expected crowd of 60,000 bought tickets through USC.

“How about, (the mood is) somewhere south of euphoria?” University President Donald Kennedy said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of student enthusiasm. It was a great victory.

“But students here have a lot to do, and a lot of other things to be excited about. We’re not exactly in an orgy of celebration.”

Still, slaying a football giant has created a buzz on campus.

“Everywhere I went, people would be like, ‘Oh, my God, that was so awesome that we won,’ ” said sophomore Sun Kim, a member of the Stanford Dollies cheerleading group. “But it wasn’t like a big surge of (interest).”

Said Christine Cernosia, a graduate student, said: “Some people are upset that it’s being attributed to luck--the luck of the Irish ran out--instead of to Stanford being good.”

A week ago, the Cardinal was coming off a loss to San Jose State and looking at a back-breaking October schedule that not only included games against Notre Dame and USC, but also against Washington and Oregon.

This week, despite the Cardinal’s 2-3 record, talk was of a possible bowl bid, perhaps even a trip to the Rose Bowl.

Said Kennedy: “It makes things upbeat. You see smiles and you hear people in the corridors talking about the team, so there’s excitement. I think everybody’s proud of this football team. It’s had a very difficult early season schedule and some real disappointments. I think there’s a feeling that it’s an unusually deserving group, and this couldn’t have come at a better time.”

The glad-handers were out in force this week, players said.

“People I haven’t even seen before have come up to me out of the blue and said, ‘Great game,’ ” Milburn said. “They’ll shake your hand and say, ‘I don’t know you, but great game.’ Everyone wants to shake your hand. It seems like not only did we win, but the whole university won.”

Milburn may write a sociology paper about the phenomenon. It would seem in line with Stanford’s way of doing things.