It was a noncompetitive exhibition that concluded just as the College Football Playoff was kicking off.

People who rang in the new year a bit too boisterously might have slept right through it. And maybe felt like they didn’t miss all that much.

The Oregon Ducks didn’t get to play for a national championship. Bowl season didn’t present them an opportunity to prove their might against another titan of the sport like Georgia, Penn State or Notre Dame.

But you know what?

The Ducks still got what they wanted out of their Fiesta Bowl appearance.

Oregon ran all over a Liberty, the predictable outcome of a lamentable matchup. The score was 45-6. But where programs around the country expressed a “why bother” attitude toward bowl season, Oregon turned it into a positive. They found a way to be excited about the opportunity.

And that wasn’t just lip service. At the risk of sounding cheesy, the Ducks got to have fun playing football.

Bo Nix connected on 28 of his 35 passes, setting an NCAA single-season record for completion percentage. He eclipsed Marcus Mariota’s school record for single-season passing yards. And an Oregon record for touchdown passes in a bowl game.

Tez Johnson, in his last game with Nix, whose parents helped raise Johnson in high school, hauled in 11 passes to break Troy Franklin’s single-season receptions record, set earlier this season.

Nix made his 61st and final start in college football, getting a curtain call when he came off the field in the fourth quarter. So did Bucky Irving, Oregon’s 1,000 yard rusher in back-to-back seasons.

Ideally, the Ducks would have played in a bowl game with big stakes. A major test that could serve as a benchmark for the program.

They selection committee didn’t give them that.

But rather than wave a white flag of disappointment, the Ducks attacked it and made the most of their situation. And yes, it amounted to a self-indulgent victory lap. Nix was chasing records, certainly. But wasn’t that better than not buying in with playing one last game to cap off a highly successful era?

Did the Ducks win big in Nix’s two seasons? Not as big as they wanted to.

The losses to Washington over the last two years still sting. Imagine what could have been if they had beaten the Huskies in just one of those three meetings.

But rather than go into the offseason blanketed in the disappointment of their Pac-12 championship loss in Las Vegas, they found a way to extract more joy out of the season before closing the chapter.

Nix strode off the field with the game ball. Dan Lanning couldn’t stop smiling. In a sport that has become terribly jaded, there was something wholesome about Oregon choosing to embrace its bowl matchup.

As an opponent, Liberty did not move the needle. For much of Monday’s game, the Flames couldn’t move the ball either. They provided fireworks by going 75 yards to score on their opening drive, but that was the end of their threat.

There are no great football lessons taken from this game.

The Ducks didn’t deliver a statement about their playoff worthiness or strike fear across the Big Ten with their 584 yards of offense. They won’t get credit for the performance because of who they did it against.

And that’s fine.

The way the Ducks made the best of their situation resonates with me.

After two years at Oregon, Nix has cemented himself as one of the most prolific players in the history of college football. And an all-timer of a leader, too. It is as much a part of his legacy that he opted into the bowl game as any win he delivered in his 27 starts as a Duck.

“My decision was simple,” Nix said. “I wanted to go out and compete one more time. I wanted to go out and play another game. … I couldn’t wait to get back out there and compete one more time. If I had the opportunity, I was going to go use it.”

Against Liberty, there was a reverse into a flea-flicker that Nix threw to Johnson for a touchdown. And another touchdown pass where Nix nearly fell down, caught himself with his left arm and stepped up to deliver a strike to Terrance Ferguson.

Hopefully players around the country will see that Nix got something out of playing in the Fiesta Bowl, even though it didn’t move him closer to a championship or necessarily improve his draft stock.

For the integrity of the bowl system, even in an expanded 12-team playoff, we all need more players to think like Nix.

Nix was a trailblazer at Oregon. The first quarterback to fully understand and embrace the benefits of the transfer portal and NIL. He reflected the state of the modern sport.

And while he was the first Oregon player in that role, he won’t be the last. Former Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel has already signed and is set to replace Nix next season and Dante Moore has transferred in after spending his freshman season at UCLA.

The pipeline is full. Nix leaves the program in very capable hands.

But should we assume that as a player he can be so easily replaced?

He threw for 4,508 yards this season with 45 touchdowns against just three interceptions. Who does that?

He was nearly flawless. And I don’t say that lightly.

I am sure quarterbacks with as much talent as Nix will come through Eugene. They might already be on their way. But the intangibles he demonstrated in his time here will be difficult to find elsewhere.

I’ll remember the way he fought to come back into the game against Washington at Autzen Stadium last season, despite an injured ankle. And the way he gutted through the pain to beat Utah a week later, despite being rendered basically immobile.

Lanning will have to reinvent the program without Nix as the Ducks make the move to the Big Ten.

It’s the nature of college sports that star players move on. Nix will likely become a first-round NFL draft pick. But in less than two years, Oregon football took on the personality of its best player, which itself felt like a direct extension of that of Lanning.

Gabriel will soon get his turn, and then Moore and all of the other players who come in to replace this memorable group of Ducks football players.

But in the absence of high stakes, Monday’s Fiesta Bowl win gave the Ducks a chance to end this chapter on their own terms.