EUGENE -- Game on the line. Down three points. First and goal from the 7. Dakota Prukop could have dropped back, wound up and thrown the football off the Autzen Stadium scoreboard on Saturday evening. He could have chucked the thing into the UO student-band section, right at the trumpet players. He could have called timeout, or dropped to a knee, or tucked the thing away and ran for the goal line, too.

But what Prukop could absolutely not do in that situation -- never, ever, ever -- was throw an interception. That would be a killer. Which naturally, he then did. And while it took a while to arrive in a place of understanding and perspective, I'm wondering if we'll all someday thank Prukop for that interception. I wonder if it will serve as the pivot point that the Ducks badly need.

Colorado beat Oregon 41-38.

The better team won the game. No doubt. Sit around stewing over a poor throw in a critical situation if you'd like, but I'm thinking the guy might have done us all a favor. Because Prukop makes a better play and maybe Oregon wins this game, and continues to get stuck in denial about where it sits and who it is anymore.

Make that play and the Ducks leave the field celebrating instead of soul searching. Throw a touchdown pass and coach Mark Helfrich doesn't feel the seat warming beneath him and the urgency all around him. Make that play, kid, and you're covering up a long line of flaws, deficiencies and truths that Oregon football must face with if it's going to climb back to greatness.

Oregon could be 4-0, right? Two very close losses. But instead they're 2-2. And maybe change within the program never happens unless they face a couple of sobering weeks in what feels a lot like a 7-5 season. Or maybe 6-6. Because the Ducks are not great. They're very mediocre and ordinary, and being 4-0 would not change that.

Playing at home the Oregon defense allowed 593 yards of offense. Colorado had 32 first downs and averaged 14.5 yards per pass attempt. It did these things starting a quarterback so baby-faced and inexperienced that I doubt Steven Montez has to rinse the razor when he shaves. Like ever.

The Ducks lack talent and playmakers. They looked lethargic to start the game. They talk a lot about playing fast, but if you really watch, Oregon rushes to the line of scrimmage, then stands around like it's waiting for a city bus. I assume the play call is what the Ducks are actually waiting for, or maybe they're just posturing for us there, showing off the orange socks and face-masks. You know, the accessories they wore as part of the uniforms on Saturday.

Photo op?

I say snap a picture of the coaching staff's long faces instead. Plaster them along the hallways of the meeting rooms. Then, figure out how to recruit better players and better develop them more successfully once they arrive. Because we can crow about the 3-4 vs. 4-3 defense all we want, but what's clear is that the Ducks don't have the kinds of playmakers it once had roaming the field.

I dare you. Find me a TJ Ward or Patrick Chung in this Oregon secondary. Go on, find me an DeForest Buckner, Haloti Ngata, Igor Olshansky or Nick Reed or Kiko Alonso or Casey Matthews or Ifo Ekpre-Olomu. Find me a Jairus Byrd or Matt Toeania on this Ducks roster. Just one. Anywhere on this defense. Because until defensive coordinator Brady Hoke can find playmakers, he's just lining up checker pieces on a chess board.

The Ducks offense?

Let's stop talking about it as if it's some kind of unsolvable adventure. Colorado shut the Ducks out in the final 15:54 of the game. When Oregon needed to make plays, it didn't. When it needed points, it couldn't find them. And yes, if Prukop had tripped over his shoelaces at the 7, the Ducks may have kicked a field goal at the end of regulation. They may have even won in overtime. Who knows? But what I do know is that if they had, Helfrich wouldn't have arrived at the post game news conference looking and sounding defeated.

"I've never been in a train wreck," he said, "but that's probably what it would feel like."

How about a dumpster fire, coach? Been in one of those? Because I'll bet if Helfrich had, there's no way he'd want to go anywhere near a dumpster again. And I'm betting that he's watching film as you're reading this, wondering how he fixes the flaws, maybe getting real about the lack of talent, too.

I followed some of the talent out of Autzen Stadium, walking alongside Buffaloes receiver Bryce Bobo. He's no clown. Scored the game-winning touchdown with a one-handed 31-yard catch that was so ridiculous replay officials had to see it for anyone to believe it.

"We wanted to push tempo," the red-shirt junior said. "We wanted to use our weapons. We know we're good. But we needed a win like this, a good Pac 12 win to show it."

I told Bobo that Colorado looked like the old Oregon on Saturday. And that new Oregon looked like old Colorado. No offense to him. It's true. The Buffaloes played with great tempo, fun innovation and wicked edge. They pressed the Ducks into an uncomfortable corner of football hell, over and over. One first down at a time, they charged toward a win. Colorado even broke from tradition and wore crisp white uniforms. Role reversal, see?

"I see that," Bobo said. "We just wanted to push things and step it up. We beat Oregon State last year, but this was beating Oregon. We wanted to make a statement."

They did.

Oregon football has been bypassed by a program that hadn't won more than two conference games in any of its five Pac 12 seasons. The Buffaloes have superior playmakers, compete with more urgency and discipline, and as a result, execute better. No question, Colorado is better. That's the statement.

Helfrich said: "Today, we had a little malaise to us at the start of the game."

Another statement. The Ducks are now 3-3 in their last six home conference games. That includes a blowout loss to Utah and an overtime loss to Washington State last season and Saturday's loss to Colorado. No USC or UCLA in there. No Stanford, either. Just in case nobody noticed.

I keep hearing that Oregon misses Chip Kelly. That it's not the same without him. That it misses offensive coordinator Scott Frost, too. I even heard on Saturday that the Ducks miss ex-defensive coordinator Nick Alliotti, who could flat recruit. Those guys aren't coming back to save Oregon football. They're not going to appear in living rooms and recruit better players. They're not going to pop up on the sideline on first and goal from the 7, a minute to play, call timeout, and remind Helfrich that he might want to run the ball.

Those guys are gone. Demote Don Pellum from defensive coordinator. Hire Hoke to replace him. Fire Hoke? Hire Vince Lombardi? Go on, perpetuate the band-aid myths if you'd like. But college football begins and ends with talent. Oregon doesn't have enough of it. That's on Helfrich. He gets the $17.5 million contract extension when he wins games. And when the program derails, he gets the sleepless nights.

I didn't like Helfrich's body language or his trainwreck comment after the game. I didn't like how beaten he sounded and how defeated he looked. But I appreciated that he was finally feeling what we can all plainly see -- Oregon is in trouble. It needs to get real about where it stands on the conference hierarchy. If it doesn't, the bout of denial goes on, and on, and on.

The Ducks made young Steve Montez look like a Steve Young on Saturday. After the game, Montez sought out his Ducks counterpart, Prukop. He located him near the 30-yard line, with his helmet on, and his eyes down. Montez leaned in and said into Prukop's ear hole, "Hell of a game."

Hell of a wake-up call, I think.

--- @JohnCanzanoBFT