Senior Night Turns Sour; Beavers Lose Civil War 47-19

Storm Woods played hard all night, running for 128 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries, and picking up 58 yards on 6 receptions. All of those numbers are team-highs.

Malcolm Marable had 229 yards on kickoff returns. It was his career night, on the last night of his career.

The seniors, and every other player, deserve all of our respect and salutes, as we have no reason to believe they gave it anything less than their all, and minus an unnecessary roughness penalty late, they handled themselves as well as they could have tonight.

Those are your bright spots, it's all dark from here.

It took Oregon 2:33 to get into the end zone on their first drive, and it looked just like every Civil War scoring drive from years' past. Defenders unable to get a hand on ballcarriers before they get to the edge, 3-4 yards after contact after they finally do. Fans knew what this was, they've seen it before.

The touchdown came on a 29-yard pass to Charles Nelson on a wheel route when DJ Alexander apparently forgot he was supposed to cover him. It nicely summed up the state of these two programs.

The last play of the first quarter was a 17-yard scramble from Marcus Mariota, who cleanly hurdled over Justin Strong towards the end of the run. It nicely summed up the state of these two programs.

2 plays later, Oregon made it 16-0, on Royce Freeman's 12 yard touchdown catch and run.

2 minutes later, Mariota hit Byron Marshall over the middle, Ryan Murphy got both hands on him but didn't come very close to bringing him down, though he succeeded in slowing him down so that Cyril Noland-Lewis ran right past the both of them, and Marshall cruised into the end zone for a 77-yard touchdown. Murphy and Noland-Lewis could do nothing but watch. It nicely summed up the state of these two programs.

On their first drive, Oregon State tried to run up the middle on 3rd and 1, but was stuffed. They tried to run up the middle on the ensuing 4th and 1, but was stuffed again. A few drives later, Oregon State tried yet again on 4th and 1, but suffered the same fate. All of that nicely summed up the state of these two programs.

The supposedly NFL-bound Sean Mannion had a horrible night, like he seemed to against just about every competent defense over his 4 years, throwing off-target all night and was lucky not to have multiple passes intercepted. In his last game as a Beaver he was 19/39 for 162 yards and 1 touchdown.

When he was on target, on more than one occasion, receivers dropped the ball.

It was 30-3 at halftime, after Oregon had opened a 30-0 lead on Mariota's 23 yard touchdown run just over 20 minutes into the game, above, and if it wasn't for the Ducks letting their foot off the gas in the 2nd half, there's no reason to believe the final score wouldn't have been that ugly as well.

What's most telling about the state of these two programs isn't the 47-19 final score, but how unsurprising it is.

(Photos by Andy Wooldridge)