Saturday, January 13, 2024

Looking back at 2023 uniform stats

Some stats and notes on this season's Duck uniforms:

  • NO complete mono combo (helmet, jersey, pants) First time that has happened since 2002!
  • Only 3 times they used same color jersey and pants. Fewest since 2012
  • Only repeat was Throwback uniform, twice. Most throwbacks since 1998.
  • NO white helmet. First time since 2020. 
  • NO Lightning yellow helmet. (there was throwback yellow) First time since 2106, when there were no yellow helmets at all)


Use of colors in a major part:

  • Apple Green: 10
  • Lightning Yellow: 4
  • Throwback Yellow: 4
  • White: 7
  • Black: 7
  • Chrome: 4
  • Eggshell: 3
  • Nightmare Green: 3

HELMETS:

  • 4 black helmets
  • 4 chrome helmets
  • 4 apple green helmets
  • 2 yellow helmet (throwback only)

JERSEYS:

  • 5 apple green
  • 4 white
  • 2 yellow
  • 2 eggshell
  • 1 nightmare green

PANTS:

  • 4 yellow (2 lightning, 2 throwback)
  • 3 white
  • 3 black
  • 2 nightmare
  • 1 apple green
  • 1 eggshell




Monday, January 8, 2024

My personal 2023 season Oregon uniform ranking

Eventhough I usually shy away from giving major opinions of the weekly combo worn by the Ducks, I am human and have my favorites, and least favorites. The last few years the Ducks have been pretty "normal" with the clothing choices (since their awful 2016 season) and there is rumor that 2024 will bring a new template for the Ducks after three seasons wearing the "diamond-plate meets wings" shoulder design. 

See my spreadsheet of each week's combos here


So here is my wrapup of the 2023 season with my personal ranking of their looks this year:

14: Chrome/Eggshell/Eggshell week 7: It was a loss to UW, and eggshell is my least favorite look since the 2016 season of odd uniform mistakes. Chrome wings are not distinct enough—they just look chrome. I'd have at least used nightmare wings.


13: Chrome/Eggshell/Nightmare week 12: Only saved from last place by huge victory against ASU and less eggshell. Sunshine helped the helmets and shiny numbers look better than the UW game.  But IMHO all three of these novelty (non brand) colors combined into one, are best worn in moderation, or not at all. 


12: Black/White/Black week 9: Again, not much school color and too much black. Win at Utah, no eggshell, apple green numbers, make it marginly better than #13. The black/carbon helmets are not distinct enough—they just look black.


11: Chrome/Nightmare/Nightmare week 10: Win against Cal. Nightmare is at least "green" but has always been way too muddy/dark for my taste. Chrome and bright yellow details, at least saves it from mono-Nightmare.


10: Chrome/White/White week 2: The saving grace of these is they looked fresh and bright in the Lubbock sunshine against Texas Tech. I think the mostly white road uniform is quite nice in this template since it has apple green elements.



9: Apple/White/White Pac 12 Champ: Slightly better than #10 only because of the green helmet. Bad loss to UW again, otherwise this is a good road uniform.



8: Black/Yellow/Black week 11: I like the bumblebee look for the Ducks, but black is still NOT a school color so it falls below any uniform with yellow and green. But any uniform the ducks were to beat USC is good.



7: Black/Yellow/Yellow week 1: The mostly all-yellow is a bold statement. Not horrible, not great, just the middle of the field.



6: Black/Apple/Black week 4: Again, black is not a school color, but this combo works fine. And boy howdy was the Colorado game a media circus!



5:  Apple/Apple/White week 13. Civil War deserved yellow pants, not white. Having white pants makes this look feel top heavy.



4:  Apple/White/Apple week 5:  This is an almost-perfect road uniform...only improvement might be yellow helmet?



3:  Apple/Apple/Yellow week 3: What the #5 combo should have been.



1/2 Tie: Throwback Yellow/Apple/Yellow, week 8/Fiesta Bowl: Does anybody dislike this look? I'm not one who thinks we have to go back to this template full-time, but it needs to come out EVERY year for Civil War or some other historically important matchup.



You can probably tell that I like the use of both green and yellow in their Duck uniforms, since they were my top 3. And the uniforms that contain NO yellow OR green fall at the bottom of my list. And if I had to choose between matching jersey/pants and no matching I always got not matching.

Friday, December 29, 2023

Fiesta Bowl: Jan 1, 2024

The Ducks—facing a bit of  letdown game against a way overmatched Liberty went for their throwbacks. The second time this season is also the first time they have worn a helmet with a UO on it in a bowl game since the the Aloha Bowl in 1998, which was the last game played in these style uniforms as non-throwbacks.

You can read more about these throwbacks here.



Tuesday, December 12, 2023

25 years "Owning the O"




On Dec. 23, 1998—twenty-five years ago—the University of Oregon dropped the "Interlocking UO" logo from its everyday official usage and introduced the Nike O. The UO still is a secondary mark and is often used in "throwback" merchandise, though. 


In terms of Oregon uniform tracking, that event was sort of like the change from BC to AD—"Before Nike" and "After Nike" if you will! 

The 1998 season was the last of the old uniforms and the 1999 season was the beginning of the new Nike sets. At the December 1998 Aloha Bowl media event on Waikiki Beach, the public got their first look at the future uniforms. (but they did not wear them in the bowl game, which they lost again to Colorado)

In 2019, Goducks.com and Rob Moseley put out two detailed stories about that event:

"...the debut of the now-iconic "O" logo that has made the University of Oregon an international brand...was unveiled on Dec. 23, 1998, when the Ducks in coordination with Nike introduced new uniforms, school colors and the logo during the week leading up to the football team's Aloha Bowl appearance. But its genesis was more than two years earlier, in the wake of the 1995 UO football team's Cotton Bowl appearance. For UO alum and Nike CEO Phil Knight, it was the first game in which his alma mater was outfitted in uniforms supplied by the company he co-founded – but also it was the Ducks' second straight loss in a New Year's Day bowl game."

https://goducks.com/news/2019/8/15/general-oral-history-the-o-turns-20.aspx

https://goducks.com/news/2019/8/22/general-oral-history-the-o-turns-20-part-ii.aspx


As a Duck, and graphic artist, I have always been intrigued by their assertion that the 1998 O logo was created by "combining" the  plan of their two then-stadiums: Hayward Field (before they demolished in 2018) and Autzen Stadium (before they made it lopsided by expanding south side in 2003)


Before the new O logo, the interlocking letters was a common way of making a college logo and therefore might be visually confused with other similar school like Oklahoma, USC and Utah among many others:


But going even farther, Oregon wanted to "Own the O" and with several other more well-known universities in states with an O-name, that was hard. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ohio State and Oregon State all use more adorned Os. And luckily the others don't rely on a single O as their primary, and Oregon State uses their Beaver head most of the time:



Learn more about the current official usage of the O logo: https://communications.uoregon.edu/uo-brand/marks-logos/primary-logo

The irony is that we all look back to 1998s as the birth or the "Oregon Uniform craze" but in reality it was an-almost decade long birth of the trend that has swept college football the last 20 years:

Joey Harrington shows off the consistent home/way look of first seasons of the Nike rebrand. 1999-2002


  • The 1999 uniform template was used for four seasons and was VERY consistent with green helmets and two jersey/pant combos.
  • 2003 they piveted to a slightly more mix-and-match style by adding yellow back in. Four different combos.
  • 2004: Five combos
  • 2005, the first non-green/white/yellow jersey was introduced: black. Nine different combos.
  • 2006, eight seasons of dark green helmets with an O came to end with the hated "grellow" helmet in the Las Vegas Bowl loss. Ten combos.
  • 2007 with Chip Kelly's arrival as OC, the whole "Oregon Way" shifted to news looks each week a and introduced white helmets   Twelve combos, with only one repeat.
  • 2008: Black helmets added.
  • 2009: The maturation of the "Oregon way" with pretty much every color used from here on out.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Pac-12 Championship Game: December 1, 2023

The LAST Pac-12 Championship Game, and the last Pac-8/10/12 game ever? 

If so, it was a doozy—arguably one of the most consequential conference games in living memory:  #3 vs. #5; winner Washington will most likely end up in the last 4-team playoff; and both QB will be invited to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Not to mention these two teams jet off to be instant heavyweights in the new Big-10 next season.

Oregon opted for what they wore last week but with white jersey. This combo has not been worn since 2021 Alamo Bowl loss, and then back to  2019 ASU loss and 2016 loss! (So with this loss, I can imagine it being a retired combo!) But then an Alamo Bowl win in 2013. 

But green-white-white was the standard road uniform during the early 2000s.



Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Week 13: November 24, 2023

It's the last Civil War game of the Pac-12 era, and the matchup is not currently scheduled for the future, but there seem to be possible rumors of it working out once Oregon goes to the Big-10.

So the Ducks pull out a combo that I cannot find them using ever before! And it appears to be the first time they have paired green jersey with white pants since last year's Utah game. It's the first appearance of white pants in the Civil War since 2008 and 2009. Three of the last four Civil Wars have featured mono green head to two, and green jersey has been the normal kit for the last decade.

The details on glove and arm logo honor Tight End Spencer Webb #4 who died accidentally in 2022, and would have been a senior this year.




Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Week 12: November 18, 2023

Oregon, in its last regular season road game to ASU decided to revisit three of their recent alternate colors: Chrome, Eggshell, and Nightmare Green. ASU on the road late in the season is a dangerous place (see 2019) for Duck teams with Natty aspirations, so I hope that this look falls more toward the good luck that these colors have meant lately, and not in the white/silver/black look that was unlucky.

This combo is new to the Ducks, and this is only the first 3-color combo since 2017! The chrome helmet makes its 4th appearance this season, the most since the 2017 season as well. Second appearance this season for both eggshell jersey and nightmare pants.