EUGENE -- The seagulls showed up early on Saturday. Third quarter, seats emptying at Autzen Stadium, traffic jam forming on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., the gulls circled above the latest UO debacle.

What?

You were expecting buzzards?

It was Stanford 52, Oregon 27 on Saturday. The Ducks carcass has been picked clean by seven losses in the last eight games. So it's just the gulls now, keeping company with a program that feels defeated.

The post-game news conference included Ducks coach Mark Helfrich issuing his customary, "It's on me," along with another apology to fans. And with defensive coordinator Brady Hoke saying, "We have to coach them better," without really being able to explain how that's possible. And with the room rolling its eyes and wondering what's left to say about this team, this staff and this season.

Then, after the game, came a message from former Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny. The booster reached out from high above the mess, in his private jet, with the stadium disappearing behind him. Kilkenny said he wants on Monday's radio show. He'd like to talk about Phil Knight, the $10 million Darren Rovell tweet that was heard around the world, and of course, we'll get to Helfrich and the future of this football program. So as much as this Saturday may feel like Groundhog Day, it is not.

There were small, significant markers everywhere that made it different. The program's primary boosters, for one, gathered in the fourth quarter beneath the West goal post. They mostly wore black, including Knight who was in a black baseball cap and a long black coat. Athletic director Rob Mullens stood in unison there, too.

None of them appeared at Helfrich's post-game news conference.

Kilkenny spent his afternoon as well at Autzen Stadium. He took the game in. Then, from 10,000 feet, sent word that he'd like on Monday's radio show (Noon on 750-AM and 102.9-FM). The hunch here is that he won't undermine Mullens by addressing Helfrich's future. It's not his style. Best I can tell, Kilkenny wants to weigh in on a couple of months of squawking and speculating.

When I asked him for more context, Kilkenny provided, "I'm in the air."

Just like those gulls, see?

We'll know more Monday of course. A reliable source inside the Oregon athletic department told me an hour after the game that Helfrich would not be fired between now and Monday. Nothing imminent, in case you were wondering. The exact quote went: "At this point nothing is happening with Mark."

Read into the "At this point..." part as you'd like. Because until something does happen with Helfrich, we're going to be stuck in a slow, painful, circling pattern like those birds were at Autzen on Saturday.

Oregon has a problem on the field. It's not competitive, even playing at home against a Stanford team that mustered only 72 total points in four games in October. The Ducks took another big blow mid-day when West Linn High School star defensive back Elijah Molden, the son of former Ducks great Alex, chose Washington over both Oregon and Stanford. It wasn't a shocker. The Huskies were a strong late entrant in the race. The worst part isn't that the Ducks didn't get him. It's that everyone knows Oregon finished third in the Molden Sweepstakes... and also, nobody thinks the kid got it wrong.

At some point, the Ducks must fire Helfrich. They still owe him a guaranteed $11.6 million (better severance than most state employees). I'm not sure if it matters if the end of Helfrich's tenure comes this week, or next, or in the hours after the Civil War. But it needs to come at some point or I fear the traffic jam issue leaving the stadium won't be a problem for some time.

Oregon needs to start peddling hope for the future. Not the coaching staff, the athletic department. Helfrich tried selling the public on Justin Herbert, but it hasn't worked. And so Mullens decision, fueled by the backing of that gaggle of boosters, is all that feels left to decide.

"We've got to make the right noise," Helfrich said after the loss. He was responding to a question about the boos in the stadium, and the early departing crowd. It's tough not to feel for Helfrich. He's a likeable guy, intelligent and a person of integrity. He just flopped recruiting and he undermines himself with the vanilla act in the news conferences. In the end, those things are symptoms of the same issue -- a failure to connect with media, boosters and recruits -- combined with a complete lack of positive result on the field.

That's the formula for a firing, in case you wondered.

It's true, Oregon has three victories this season. The Ducks beat UC Davis and Virginia in non-conference games. They beat Arizona State, too. But that's all been washed away with an unprecedented line of devastating losses -- many at home -- that leave Oregon's season broken with two tough games to play.

The Ducks at Utah next week feels like a certain blowout loss. The Civil War? We all know Oregon State doesn't have half the talent that Oregon does, but it's playing at home and we know the Beavers will run barefoot through a field of broken glass for Gary Andersen.

All along, people have been wondering if Helfrich might be able to fix this season and do better next year. But that's not the question. Of course, he'd do better next year. I don't know how it could go worse. The question that the boosters and administration at Oregon have to ask themselves is this: Can Helfrich compete for a championship again?

Because that's the expectation at Oregon now. The Ducks have the resources, the facility and the support to be contenders. But they've turned into Pac 12 bottom-feeders.

This season could have been so much more for Oregon. I can't blame defensive coordinator Brady Hoke. He showed up late and doesn't have the personnel to run what he's supposed to run. I don't blame running back Royce Freeman. He was placed in an impossible situation this season. As was Herbert and graduate transfer quarterback Dakota Prukop. This whole UO football thing was laced together, just like the season before it, with silly string.

That's on Helfrich. He nailed that part.

College football is serious business. Kilkenny and Knight are serious businessman and boosters who love the university dearly. Mullens has a line of serious decisions in front of him.

From high above, all of this must look obvious.

-- @JohnCanzanoBFT