There was a sequence on Saturday in Oregon State’s 30-3 lashing of Florida in the Las Vegas Bowl that made me simultaneously excited and depressed.

Excited because I think the sky is the limit for Jonathan Smith and Oregon State.

Depressed because I’m worried Smith won’t be in Corvallis to see it through.

When star freshman running back Damien Martinez suffered a shoulder injury with 3:35 remaining in the first quarter, Beaver fans in Sin City were right to be nervous. Martinez was absolutely fantastic down the stretch for Oregon State, topping 100 yards in six straight games, and the Beavers’ terrific second half coincided with Martinez taking the starting role.

So his fateful first-down run for 1 yard had the potential to derail the Beavers’ momentum. But then quarterback Ben Gulbranson hit Silas Bolden for 9 yards, Deshaun Fenwick ran it for 3 yards and Tyjon Lindsey ran it in from 8 yards out to put the Beavers up 7-0.

On the ensuing kickoff, Oregon State’s 29 absolutely leveled Florida’s 94 despite the fair catch, and on Florida’s next possession, the Gators broke off a big run early to set up a scoring drive but the Beavers bent but didn’t break and ultimately denied Florida on fourth down to get the ball back with all the momentum in front of a vastly pro-Beaver crowd.

But what happened next was the counterbalance to that toughness that Smith has installed in the Oregon State program.

Smith had game-planned for senior Tristan Gebbia, the team’s former starter turned willing backup, to have the third offensive possession of the game. Never mind Gulbranson’s hot hand. Never mind the fact that Oregon State had just scored. Smith honored his commitment and put Gebbia in a game for just the third time this season.

“He’d been practicing really well, this team — and again, his leadership and his influence, the way he’s handled being the backup — and he was playing well the last half of the year, we felt good putting him in the game,” Smith told ESPN during the game.

An illegal participation penalty sent the Beavers back 5 yards, and Gebbia on his heels, and after a 3-and-out, OSU punted. Then the Beavers shut down the Florida offense and forced a quick punt, and guess what? Smith put Gebbia back out there, and he led them down the field for a key second-quarter field goal.

It was that combination — toughness and empathy — that makes me know Oregon State has the foundation for an extended run of success.

It was also that combination that makes me think Smith will get plucked from his alma mater with a pie-in-the-sky offer. What Smith is building is simply too good to ignore.

They sat at the post-game press conference conquering heroes — the best Swiss Army Knife in college football sitting next to one of the best defenders in the Pac-12 and a young quarterback who moved to 7-1 as a starter — and Jack Colletto, Jaydon Grant and Ben Gulbranson made it very clear just how seriously they took this game, all the work they put in, not just this week, but over so many weeks, tasked with resurrecting a program that had fallen ill.

Colletto pretty much summed it up.

“Really the thought process is you just think back about all the work, the body of work, that has taken place to get to this point. Jaydon was here the year before me and I got here in 2018, and we couldn’t win a ball game to save our lives,” he said. “To go from 2-10, a record like that in 2018, to completely changing the program, flipping it on its head and not only doing that but finishing in the right way. We take a lot of pride in finishing everything and that was the motto all week. To be able to do that and actually execute it — there’s no better feeling.”

Added Grant: “It means everything. You work so hard, not just in the season, but starting back in January. Then you have Spring ball, then you have summer workouts then you have fall camp. You go through the ups and downs of the season ultimately to play in the best bowl game possible. So to come out and play what I thought was our best complete game in all three phases, it means everything.”

What Smith has done in just five seasons is downright amazing. He inherited a program that went 1-11 under Gary Andersen and his interim replacement, Cory Hall, in 2017. Then came that brutal 2018 campaign that Colletto mentioned, which saw little improvement in the win column but the setting of a foundation that is coming to fruition now. Smith sowed seeds that he is just reaping now, and the reaping is only beginning.

A year later, the Beavers won five games, then went 2-5 in the weird COVID-stricken 2020 campaign, followed by a sharp improvement in 2021, when Oregon State finished 7-6. The Beavers were much improved, yet they still lost four of their final six games, including a nine-point loss to Oregon in the rivalry game and a 24-13 loss to Utah State in the L.A. Bowl.

This year, there was no such late-season swoon. The Beavers won four straight and seven of eight down the stretch, and if not for a pair of three-point losses to USC and Washington, the Beavs would’ve gone 12-1.

I heard a stat during ESPN’s broadcast of the game that just about blew my mind and also made me think of that first-quarter sequence of toughness and empathy.

To this point, only one Beaver has joined the transfer portal: former starting quarterback Chance Nolan, who watched Gulbranson take his position with a 7-1 record as a starter.

That says so much about Smith and the culture he’s built in Corvallis. That says that people are buying into what he’s doing, top to bottom.

In a conference that is about to enter a state of flux, the Beavers have tons of momentum and a strong foundation. That’s a scary twosome for the rest of the league. Alongside Washington, Oregon, and Utah, Oregon State is in the mix to take over a post-Los Angeles Pac-12.

“It’s a huge momentum boost,” said Gulbranson, who once again didn’t put up huge numbers but nonetheless took a major step toward cementing his hold on the starting position. “I love working with these guys, I love grinding with these guys. All these seniors know all the work they put in to turn this program and we look forward to continuing that in the next few years.”