LAS VEGAS -- Marcus Arroyo had opportunities to leave Oregon after just one season as the Ducks' co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

But Arroyo, a former college quarterback who has coached the position for nearly his entire 13-year career, knows that any offense is only as good as its QB. And at Oregon, he already potentially has one of college football's best in 2018.

Arroyo called the presence of Justin Herbert "an important factor" in his decision to stay at Oregon, where he will be the lone offensive coordinator and play-caller in 2018 under coach Mario Cristobal, with whom he'd shared OC duties this season.

"When you've got a special bond, a special kind of thing going, I am old enough to know now the grass isn't always greener," Arroyo said Thursday as Oregon (7-5) continued its preparations for Saturday's Las Vegas Bowl against No. 25 Boise State (10-3). "Weighing that opportunity was something that was hard on me and my family, and working through some of the decisions we had to make, but this is a special place."

Oregon is the sixth program where Arroyo has served as offensive coordinator, and he will be UO's fourth play-caller in as many years, following Scott Frost in 2015, Matt Lubick in 2016 and Willie Taggart this fall.

"The players love him, he's a relentless worker," Cristobal said. "He's exactly what you want as a brother, as a colleague, as a coach, as an offensive coordinator. That guy's going to make a great head coach one day."

Arroyo's nomadic career began in 2004, one year after he graduated from San Jose State, calling plays at Prairie View A&M, before catching his big break at his alma mater one year later while working as a graduate assistant under San Jose State coach Dick Tomey.

Tomey recalled being impressed watching the progress of quarterback Adam Trafalis under Arroyo's unofficial tutelage. Trafalis needed help with his mechanics and preparation and Arroyo, who'd played the same position at the same school just two years prior, helped with the discipline. Trafalis would finish his career as the Spartans' all-time leading passer, but only after he and Arroyo had learned to work together.

"I earned his trust and it wasn't always lovey-dovey," Arroyo said. "It was hard and it was honest and truthful and structured."

Fast forward to last spring. After jobs at Wyoming, Cal, Southern Mississippi, the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- where he filled in as an interim coordinator in 2014 -- and Oklahoma State, Arroyo began the slow process of building what has become an impactful relationship with Herbert.

As a freshman in 2016, Herbert had become close to coach Mark Helfrich and his offensive coordinator, David Yost, but both were fired following the season.

Putting his trust in Arroyo, his new quarterbacks coach, "took a while," Herbert said this week. "I think the end of spring ball, when he started spending more time with us and just hanging out with us, the more we got comfortable, the easier it got."

Said Arroyo: "I know having played the position that when you develop that bond at that position it's a special one. ... We both hit a home run with that."

After two seasons coaching running backs at Oklahoma State, Arroyo was hired in February after the resignation of former co-offensive coordinator David Reaves, who had been arrested on a DUII charge in mid-January, and had little experience working with his new co-workers. Less than two months later, however, after carpooling and eating meals together, Cristobal described his relationship with Arroyo "like peas and carrots."

Upon Cristobal's promotion last week to head coach, he said he asked Arroyo to stay as the play-caller in part because of that relationship, and Arroyo's own trust with Herbert.

"I think in our first week working together, we kind of knew it," Cristobal said. "We really evolved. Coach (Taggart) had an impressive offense with the 'Gulf Coast Offense' but if you watch us and study film from game one to game 12 we're very different. Marcus has a humongous hand in that."

Oregon's offense in 2017 was a blend of the three offenses that Arroyo, Cristobal and Taggart had worked in prior to arriving in Eugene. Going forward, it will still carry the stamp of the power-run scheme that Alabama ran while Cristobal was the Tide's offensive line coach -- Herbert said Cristobal will likely want to run the ball more -- but is now Arroyo's to mold.

"Coach Taggart brought in a great vision, we all collectively put our heads together, and I think it has worked out really well," Arroyo said. "Our guys played hard, we had a physical brand of football that was explosive, it was efficient."

Saturday's bowl game against the Broncos will be a preview of Arroyo's offense in 2018, as much of the same personnel playing in the 2017 finale will be back next fall. Senior running back Royce Freeman will not play, giving more reps to backfield returners Tony Brooks-James and Darrian Felix, in addition to senior Kani Benoit. Leading receiver Charles Nelson and left tackle Tyrell Crosby won't be back, but the bulk of UO's offense will return.

So will Arroyo. That continuity should provide Herbert and freshman Braxton Burmeister stability as they develop. Arroyo is still learning, too.

"We all start in careers and you go into it thinking you've got it figured out, and you find out 16 years later you didn't know anything," he said. "You just evolve. I've come a long ways."

-- Andrew Greif