EUGENE -- Nobody in orange was hungry.
The suits at Oregon State barely touched the bean dip on Saturday night. The tortilla-chip baskets on the suite countertops were still filled. A giant plate of chocolate brownies was stacked, intact, on the small table just inside Suite S822 at Autzen Stadium.
Beavers athletic director Scott Barnes and university president Dr. Ed Ray stopped closely following the Civil War game in the third quarter. The Beavers' braintrust was instead huddled around a small round table in the back corner of the room, plotting.
I hope.
Worst job in in the joint belonged to the poor stat guy whose job it was to tip-toe into the visiting athletic director's box, peek in, and drop off the running game summary and statistics. The poor stooge did his duty in the fourth quarter, then popped out into the hallway, took a breath, and said, "Man, it's like a funeral in there."
Final score: Ducks 69, Beavers 10.
That's how the 121st Civil War ended. Oregon scored more points than any team in the history of this series. It won by more points than any before. UO could have put 100 on OSU if it cared to, and the Beavers couldn't have stopped it. So that's where we are in this rivalry, and it's time for Barnes and Dr. Ray to make it stop the way the Oregon Ducks athletics power brokers did 12 months ago.
Willie Taggart has siblings. Hire one of them maybe?
Naw. That would be too simple a fix. Also, it would only begin to address the issues at Oregon State. There are facilities improvements needed in Corvallis, and that takes dollars, which takes booster support, which requires solid on-field performance, and well, yeah, getting dragged around the field by your rival isn't going to make fans write big checks.
A great hire would help fix this (Beau Baldwin? Jeff Tedford? Someone else?). An exciting plan would, too. Some passionate direction would. And so maybe what the Beavers needed was a watershed moment delivered in the Ducks' woodshed.
This game wasn't all about the Beavers. Oregon felt like it needed a big game in what's been a frustrating season plagued by injuries and transition. It got just that in so many ways. But across the way, Oregon State hit rock bottom, melting down in front of 57,475 fans and a television audience watching at home.
Oregon had 577 total yards. It had 28 first downs. The Ducks defense held the Beavers to only 98 rushing yards in the game. It was bone dry on the field, but UO left wearing the fancy Nike raincoats they were mocked for putting on in the 120th Civil War.
This was a college-football intervention.
"I gotta say we had some extra incentives," Taggart said. "There was a lot of trash talk and our guys were ticked off."
The Beavers were confronted with so many painful truths, and very few of them were on interim coach Cory Hall. Don't blame Hall for the 'raincoat' trash talk. He's just the sucker left holding the head set. He was trying to make a 1-10 team feel fun and it blew up in his face. Chalk this up instead to bad timing, razor-thin margins, poor moves, and program trajectory that disintegrated from hopeful to dire in seven months time.
There's no safety net at OSU. The football program, wobbled, then fell off the high-wire during the act. Splat. 1-11.
Oregon State can fix this. It can make a great hire. It can finish Reser Stadium. It can pull itself together and decide not to be a doormat in the Pac 12 Conference. But that's going to take vision and money and if the Beavers can't find both in large quantities, this scene is going to be on repeat for as long as Taggart stays at Oregon.
Taggart isn't a forever guy in Eugene. There's no such thing in today's college football. The Ducks must know they're renting him just like Chip Kelly. But in season No. 1 what Taggart has managed to do is change the energy in the program, and instill some much-needed identity. And this Civil War won't be forgotten.
Oregon, on Saturday, announced that it won't be mocked. And it looked like a program headed somewhere bigger. And Taggart, now 1-0 in Civil War games, was an important piece of the quick rebuild.
"There were a lot of times this season where we had to learn... we stuck together and it helped," Taggart said. "We can't go anywhere if we don't care for each other and we don't play for each other."
As much as I'd caution the Beavers not to try and fashion themselves after the Ducks, what they can do it learn from the example. A year ago, the Beavers pile drove Oregon into submission. AD Rob Mullens fired Mark Helfrich. The Ducks were driven not just to hire high-energy Taggart, but surround him with bounty-hunter assistants and turn them loose with all the resources imaginable.
"I will remember every part of this first season," Taggart said.
Taggart's inaugural 7-5 record with the Ducks wasn't an accident. Could have been 8-4 or 9-3. Could have unraveled all the way. Taggart held that together. But the point is, it wasn't just a coach hire that corrected Oregon's path. It won't just be a hire for the Beavers. It's going to take vision, and plans, and as much as Barnes is great at talking, it's time to start backing it up with some action -- sort of like all the raincoat talk.
Before kickoff, Oregon booster Pat Kilkenny took the stairs from the luxury suites on level four of Autzen to the visiting athletic director's box. The one-time Ducks AD and insurance mogul, popped in to talk with Barnes. They've known each other for 15 years. I'm hoping Kilkenny, who once served as Oregon's AD, was there to deliver a pep talk to the rivals. Because they needed one.
It was Kilkenny, who announced to his constituents after that 65-38 Ducks Civil War rout in 2008: "This is one of the happiest days of my life. They talk all about the fancy uniforms and facilities. (The game) wasn't about fancy uniforms. That's not football.
"Football is a game of toughness. We just went out there kicked their a--."
It happened again on Saturday.
Barnes and Dr. Ray left Autzen Stadium walking side by side afterward. They traveled down the back stadium ramp into the darkness. I hope they find their way.