The result wasn’t what Kim Meyer and the other 200-plus college football fanatics were hoping for when they gathered at the Saint Louis Alumni Association Clubhouse on Monday to watch Crusader alumnus Marcus Mariota lead his No. 2-ranked Oregon squad against No. 4 Ohio State.
But even as running back Ezekiel Elliot punched through the Duck defense to punctuate the Buckeyes’ definitive 42-20 victory and cameras closed in on Ohio State coach Urban Meyer punching the air in celebration of his third national championship — and the first championship of the new playoff era — Kim Meyer found it difficult to mope.
"It’s a hard loss," Meyer said. "But Marcus represented the state well. He’s an awesome man. His parents did a good job. This (loss) won’t take away from what he did this season, and he’ll continue do great things for himself and his family."
It was an emotional four hours for fans of both teams, as evidenced by the raucous cheers and despondent groans emanating from restaurants, sports bars and living rooms around the state.
Saint Louis alumni showed up at the Isenberg Street clubhouse hours before the game, some in just-from-work aloha shirts, many others in Mariota jerseys and other haute Duckwear.
In the front room, alumni from the Saint Louis Class of 1954 secured a plum spot in front of one of several largemonitors. In back the transmission was running 45 seconds behind, creating a seemingly different plane of existence. More than 100 other alumni and their families sat there in the dark watching the game projected against a giant screen.
The broken wave of response was, at times, surreal. First, the front room howled in pained disbelief as Oregon’s Dwayne Stafford muffed a long pass from Mariota. Nearly a minute later the larger back room erupted in a fresh wave of disappointment as history repeated itself in not-quite real time.
On the far end of the room sat Vinnie Passas, Mariota’s quarterback coach at Saint Louis, who watched intently as the Heisman Trophy winner took to the line of scrimmage with his team trailing 14-7 in the first quarter.
"You can see in his eyes how focused he is," Passas said. "He’s locked in."
At the bar, Pat Viela, a 1962 Saint Louis alumnus, contemplated the significance of Mariota’s appearance on the biggest stage in college football.
"There are no words," Viela said, resting an elbow on the bar amid an overspill of spicy ahi poke and rivulets of cold-beer condensation.
Nearby a sloshed patron bellowed an ornithological query to anyone who would listen: "Ducks — ooki (big) or chisai (small)?"
"Marcus is all about the culture and the people that he comes from," Viela continued. "He’s inspired so many people just by being himself."
The mood was less reflective at Giovanni Pastrami in Waikiki, where the ratio of Ohio State fans to Oregon faithful tilted decidedly toward the Buckeyes.
In one booth the Wlodarz family of Toledo bubbled with growing confidence as OSU took a 21-7 lead.
Jack Wlodarz, 70, said he was hoping for a close, well-played game in which neither team would look bad. And an OSU victory, of course.
The family checked out of its hotel early to grab a spot to watch the game. They planned to catch the red-eye back to the mainland to catch the tail end of what they anticipated would be a joyful Buckeye celebration.
"We’re very positive," said daughter Angela Wlodarz, a 1994 OSU graduate living in California. "We were confident even going up against FSU (Florida State University) in the previous game. Being underestimated seems to work for us."
David Conrad of Marysville, Ohio, moved to Oahu just over two weeks ago and seemed to be having the best day of his brief Hawaii residency Monday.
"We have momentum, we’re playing well and we’re going to dominate," Conrad said. "It’s only appropriate that we should set the precedent (by winning the first playoff championship game) since we’ve been a perennial powerhouse."
Conrad’s mother, father and both sisters attended OSU. He graduated from Yale.
Less than a mile away, at Jimmy Buffett’s at the Beachcomber, 63-year-old Oregon resident Eric Dillman accurately predicted an Oregon comeback run.
Dillman was disappointed at the Ducks’ play calling in the second and third quarters but was confident that they would still make a game of it.
"Marcus Mariota is the best quarterback in college football," he said. "And this team never gives up."
Dillman earned an incentive trip from his company in Oregon and decided to visit Hawaii specifically so he could watch the game in Mariota country.
Back at the Saint Louis Alumni Association Clubhouse, Richard Rapozo watched silently as the Buckeyes broke the game open with two touchdowns in the final quarter.
"It’s disappointing," Rapozo said. "It was not a fortunate outcome, but that doesn’t change the fact that Marcus did a very good job of representing Hawaii all year."
