It wasn’t all that impressive of a victory over the Bruins —but Saturday night felt fun. The atmosphere was great, the players were hyped and the Ducks even pulled into their bag of tricks at one point.

Losses to Washington State and Arizona were monotonous and dull. The X’s and O’s took control of the players. Motivation was lacking. Football just wasn’t fun. Losing never is of course, but even from the start, there wasn’t too much to be excited about.

Maybe it’s a home versus road thing. Or a realization that there’s still a lot of football left to be played, and a lot left to play for. Either way, it was good to see the Ducks get back to playing their game — and a relief that an Oregon opponent was the one making the simple mistakes for a change.

It all got started on an electrifying punt return for a touchdown from Ugo Amadi, who nearly went untouched on his way to the end zone. Given Oregon’s recent offensive struggles (which is putting it lightly), the breakthrough on special teams lit a much needed spark.

That spark didn’t necessarily set off a whole lot of offensive fireworks, but rather better play from the defense and a phenomenal trick play on a field goal attempt. Former high school quarterback Blake Maimone finally received his moment to shine. From the holder position, upon receiving the snap he spun around 180 degrees, looked up, and hit tight end Jacob Breeland in stride who took it down to the one yard line.

For what has been cited as conservative offensive play calling, it was encouraging to see something new, something exciting, something entertaining. But therein lies the underlying issue — the exciting aspects of this game didn’t come primarily from the offense as one would hope for.

Apart from a 67 yard touchdown pass from Justin Herbert to Dillon Mitchell and a 54 yard touchdown run from Tony Brooks-James — both coming against a UCLA defense which had subbed in several backups at that point — the offense remains dull and unimaginative.

Is it dull and unimaginative because of offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo? Or is it dull and unimaginative because of a lack of playmakers? Probably a little of both. But following the game last night, and in speaking with the media, head coach Mario Cristobal talked about how the offense was able to get back on track.

“It all starts with the run game,” Cristobal said. “The way that we’re built, the personnel we have, the lack of depth we have at certain skill positions, we’re built to do a certain thing a certain way.

“When we don’t do it, like we found ourselves last week, we were in scramble mode. We were in different kind of territory and it’s something we have just have to do a better job like this week, not only staying on schedule, but create the right type of opportunities for our players.”

I’ll leave that open for interpretation. Typically, Cristobal’s comments are generic as you would expect. But it feels like this should give at least give some type of answer as to the bizarre offensive season this has turned out to be.

If the Ducks are going to finish the season successfully, the defense and special teams need to continue to bring the excitement to Oregon football. The offense is unable to be the driving force for this team at the moment. Oregon will now travel to Salt Lake City to face the Utah Utes next Saturday.