As the Cardinal players showered and dressed, large red boxes were wheeled out and onto trucks.
Now the Cardinal players will try to put their only loss behind them.
"I will probably have the full range of emotions about those guys," he said of his former Cardinal players.
But for the current Cardinal players, the entries for 1998, 1999 and 2000 -- Stanford's last three appearances in the N.C.A.A. tournament -- stand out the most.
On the Hokies' ensuing drive, Taylor was intercepted inside the Stanford 5 by safety Delano Howell, who was one of the largely unheralded Cardinal players to take a star turn.
After Stanford dispatched U.C. Davis in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament, the Aggies' coach, Sandy Simpson, noted that the Cardinal players made up for their one clear shortcoming — team speed — "by knowing the angles and getting to places sooner".
STANFORD 91, OREGON 56 Chiney Ogwumike scored 18 points, her sister Nnemkadi added 16, and three other Cardinal players scored in the double digits as No. 4 Stanford beat host Oregon.
Stanford's do-it-all running back Christian McCaffrey, who broke the NCAA record for all-purpose yards in a season, was the runner-up, making it four second-place finishes for Cardinal players in seven years.
Fans still approach Stanford alumni like Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, for autographs at home games, but unlike seasons past, Cardinal players are routinely recognized in San Francisco-area restaurants and airports in Pacific-10 cities. "There's no real rebuilding anymore," said the 7-foot junior center Jason Collins.
Cardinal players from years later are jumbled together in my mind, but I remember the Cardinals of 1962 -- Oliver, Ken Boyer, Julio Gotay, Julian Javier, Bill White, Curt Flood, Charley James, Curt Simmons, Ernie Broglio, and the great Bob Gibson.
