The Ducks traveled to Seattle. Unbelievably, they wore a combo that has not been worn since 1998! Yellow, white, green. A classic of the pre-Nike rebrand Belotti/Brooks years. The model for the set is Akili Smith HJr., who is the son of the famous Akili Smith from the late 1990s teams!
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| Akili Smith Sr. from late 1990s |
Oregon vs USC, with Gameday in town! Oregon uses a combo last seen in the Big-10 championship game last year. This time with black wings on green helmet instead of silver. This is another unusual combo that—before 2024—was last seen several times in 2006-2008.
The last times the Ducks have gone white/green/white were: 2015 win against Cal; 2014 Pac-10 championship against Arizona; 2010 Rose Bowl loss to tOSU.
I'l be honest that the marble helmet is cool, but too subtle and the green stripes seem random paired with the green and yellow jersey. I think a green and yellow stripe would have been better. I typically dislike white paints under darker jersey, but the look was saved by matching pant to helmet to create a "sandwich look."
The Ducks travel to Iowa and played the Hawkeyes for the first time since 1994. Green-white-green which is good since Iowa is a black and yellow team. This combo has been used for several years running, but the white wings on green helmet is new! And this snaps a stretch of 8 weeks where the Ducks wore only black or white jerseys. We haven't seen yellow since week 3.
Two-thirds of the Duck season is over and it's a bye week so I thought it would be a good time to examine trends and try to predict the end of the season.
A long-teased uniform this week against Wisconsin. The Ducks salute Oregon's hippie culture and Grateful Dead concerts held at Autzen Stadium in the past. Some schools play up their military connections, but in Eugene it just makes sense to play up their tie-dye! And Madison, Wisconsin is probably the other most granola-munching of the Big-10, so it's appropriate to wear it against them.
Read Phil Hecken's roundup about it https://uni-watch.com/2025/10/20/oregon-to-become-grateful-ducks-this-saturday/
This is the 5th game in a row where either black or white is the dominant color, and it's been since week 3 that ANY yellow has been present. With Iowa, Minnesota and USC being the next 3 opponents, I cant see much yellow being used against that very golden group. First mono-black set since their win last season against tOSU.
A UO history lesson on the connections:
A week after a tough loss at home to Indiana (the Ducks first ever Big10 conference loss!), the Ducks flew east to play Rutgers for the first time ever.
The Ducks went Stormtrooper this week, for the first time since 2022. The last few years they have gone chrome helmet and all white, which is a good look but not strictly Stormtrooper. The black wings on white marble (shell is from Shoeduck ensemble) helmet is a first.
The Ducks have had some memorable Stormtrooper looks the last 15 years. Very few have been hum-drum games-mostly historic wins and some historic losses!:
