I miss Chip Kelly.

I miss the brashness and innovation. I miss his ability to teach and get a team to embrace a vision, a culture and a way of going about their business.

Right about the time of Oregon's fourth run, run, pass/three and out last Saturday, I missed him even more.

Kelly took over an Oregon team with a stumpy quarterback and a couple of quick little running backs, lost his first game in embarrassing fashion on national TV, then proceeded to compile a 46-7 record, three 12-win seasons, 3 straight conference championships, two Rose Bowls and a trip to the national championship. His teams went 33-3 in the PAC-12.

People say other teams were beginning to figure out the Chip Kelly offense and up-tempo spread, but the 2012 team, his last before leaving for the NFL, averaged a school-record 49.6 points per game. The show wasn't slowing down. He just wanted a new challenge.

In the NFL players bickered and carped about his methods. Disgruntled veterans tuned him out, even accused him of racism. Short stints at Philadelphia and San Francisco made him a rich man but ended in failure.

Kelly comes back to town with a 2-6 football team that's struggled with adapting to a new regime and been battered by injuries. Both of his starting quarterbacks have missed time. Graduate transfer quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels bolted for Colorado State during spring practice, and promising receiver Bryan Addison opted out this summer to enroll at Oregon.

Injuries have mounted as PAC-12 play ground on. Three starting linebackers are out. Offensive lineman Justin Murphy went down against Colorado. The wide receiver unit's been decimated.

The New Hampshire native's return to college football has not been smooth. With a tough out of conference schedule the Bruins started 0-5 before a surprising 37-7 win at Cal on October 13th. The following week they caught Arizona without Kahlil Tate, winning a squeaker in the Rose Bowl 31-30. Michigan transfer Wilton Speight threw for 204 yards and a couple of touchdowns.

The two-game win streak fueled talk of a turnaround. Maybe the old Chip Kelly magic was beginning to take hold in Westwood. At 2-2, the Bruins were even in the South Division race.

That only lasted a moment. Last Friday the team hosted surging Utah, crushed by the Utes 41-10.

Like Oregon UCLA has enough talent to stay with good teams on their good days, but can look woeful and outmanned on their bad.

Believe that Kelly and his staff (which includes former Oregon coaches Don Pellum, Jerry Azzinaro and Jimmie Dougherty) will scour the game film for advantages and opportunities on this return trip to the birthplace of all his early success, the stop where he earned a reputation as an offensive mastermind and genius.

His timing is impeccable. The Ducks are reeling after a pair of embarrassing blowout losses on the road, games in which they were dominated in the first half and physically beaten off the ball.

Oregon's offense right now lacks any of the creativity or endless variety Kelly brought to it. The team is discouraged and out of rhythm, a situation made even worse with stars Justin Herbert and Dillon Mitchell in concussion protocol. This morning at practice, Braxton Burmeister took the first reps with the first team.

Pressed into the starting role last year with Herbert out with a broken collarbone, Burmeister was 8-15 passing for 74 yards, an interception and a fumble in a 31-14 UCLA victory. On Social Media, some fans are already clamoring for true freshman Tyler Shough.

Kelly's enormous success at Oregon was a moment in time, and marred by an NCAA investigation and sanctions. He hated recruiting and chafed at the obligation to hobnob with boosters. He sparred with the press. He still does. The Bruin beat writers asked him yesterday about the availability of freshman quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and he said, "We'll see. We'll see. I'm not a hypothetical guy so there's no reason to make any predictions on this or that. He could be 100 percent and the rest of the team could have bubonic plague and we wouldn't be able to play at all. We'll see what happens."

He could be single-minded, caustic and acerbic. He didn't suffer fools or their foolish questions, once shouted at rowdy fans to shut up during an interview with Erin Andrews. He was an a**hole, often stubborn and intractable, occasionally wedded to strategies that weren't working (remember all those inside zone reads Auburn stuffed at the goal line?). But he was our a**hole, and he won like no other coach in Oregon history. He made people believe. He made a team of 2,3,4-star players believe they could outwork and beat anybody. He dialed up plays no one could stop even when they knew they were coming, and at halftime he would install counters to all the defensive counters and confuse them all over again. He won with Jeremiah Masoli and he won with Darron Thomas and he won with a redshirt freshman named Marcus Mariota, a kid that had two scholarship offers when he came to Oregon football camp in the summer of 2010. When those players were hurt he won with their backups. "Next man up," he said. Everybody bought in.

On Saturday Kelly will wear his headset with his cap pulled down over his forehead, his round body hunched forward, or his arms folded across his chest like Patton reviewing a tank corps. On the Oregon sideline Mario Cristobal will be earnest, everything triple-checked, the film painstakingly studied, the players prepped and pleaded with and urged to give a supreme effort.

Thus far what the Oregon sideline and coaches box lack is the spark of imagination Kelly brought, the singular ability to see the geometry and calculus of football in unique ways. Kelly found exploitable advantages and buried teams in a blur of points. The Oregon coaches work hard. They are committed, intense and gifted at relationships. But there's nothing like the magic Kelly brought. They are worker bees in a game dominated by wasps with a hunger for meat.