Thursday, December 17, 2020
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Ducky color of the year
Pantone, the arbiter of color every year, has come out with its 2021 color(s) and they look a bit familiar to Duck fans. Like in 2016 when they predicted "greenery" to be the 2017 color, this year's color prediction looks a lot like many of Oregon's uniform combos the last few years.
2021 will be the year of "Ultimate Gray" and "Illuminating." I personally think yellow and gray look great together (but maybe stay away from just gray please)
Here are some outfits the Ducks might want to pull from their closet to be extra fashionable next season:
Saturday, December 12, 2020
The Best of Oregon-Washingon
Lacking an actual game today, I wanted to look back at my favorite UO-UW uniform moments of the last 30 years. Since the game looked pretty much the same for many years, I'll start with 1994 and the infamous "pick" game.
MY FAVORITES:
1994
Classic UO yellow/green/yellow that is probably the gold standard for UO home uniforms.
2000
The debut of the Bellotti-Bold font and new era of Nike uniforms with darker green/black.
2004
Nice use of yellow and green, paired with the classic UW road uniform.
2007
The "Stormtrooper" debuts.
2009
I'm a sucker for these shoulder wings, and even the black and white works with the colorful UW home set.
2014
The 20th anniversary of the "The Pick" and throwback uniforms, vs UW White-out.
2017
Ducks are nice and crisp but they lost.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
The Curse of Grey pants?
If you have watched Oregon football for the past decade, you will have noticed that Oregon tends to experiment "a bit" with colors and styles. Sometimes those styles work great visually like the wings on shoulders and helmets; but sometimes they tend to be associated with bad losses/seasons. "Grellow" helmets is all you need to know!
On this blog I have already tallied what the Ducks wear during their losses since 2019:
2009-2015 losses
2015-2019 losses
Check out my spreadsheet of combos going back to 2008
But, the subject of this post (a few days after a bad loss to Cal while wearing "wolf grey") is "Are Grey Pants Cursed?" And the answer is not really. If the grey pants are worn by the likes of Marcus Mariota and LaMichael James in the Chip Kelley years pre 2015, then they are fine, but pretty much every time since 2015 they lost!
Ever since the 2009 season, when they started to wear grey they are actually 15-7! BUT, the vast majority of those wins come in the golden years of Chip Kelly when they wore a lot of grey. But in the five years since, the Ducks are 0-4 in grey pants. All four of those losses coincide with pairing grey with practically NO green/yellow.
So the takeaway is for the Ducks to be good in grey pants, they need to....have a Heisman-finalist....and/or also pair them with good amounts of yellow, green and black. Stay away from mono-grey and silver/white.
Results when Oregon has work grey/silver pants the last decade:
(Note: I did NOT include the really dark grey, that bordered on black, from 2016)
2020: Week 5 "Wolf Grey" Loss at Cal
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| AP photo |
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Week 5: Dec 5, 2020
The December 5 game at Cal brings the second new uniform of the short 2020 season. But what is notable is that it also brings "wolf grey" out for the first time! It's an attractive set that—if I may be kind— calls to mind the white/grey set that the Ducks wore in the 2010 Civil War that clinched a National Title game appearance:
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| 2010 "Civil War" Win |
But on the flipside...As soon as it was revealed on twitter, the comments went to the Duck's rather meager results when wearing grey/silver (especially pants). Like losing while wearing the "Lewis & Clark" uniform and during two National Championship game losses:
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| 2016 "Lewis and Clark" uniform Loss |
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| 2011 Natty Loss |
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| 2015 Natty Loss |
Let's hope that they can sidestep the jink of this color combo. They did win at Washington in white/silver last season.
You can see my retrospectives about Oregon's LOSSES, especially when wearing white, grey and silver here:
Read more about the 2020 uniform here:
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Saturday, November 28, 2020
Week 4: Nov 27, 2020
The now-nameless game vs. Oregon State brought out the color-vs color matchup! But they picked the most colorful hues in the box this time! Thankfully both teams looked like they had gotten the hi-viz uniforms at a hunting supply store, since the Willamette Valley fog was dense!
Oregon in mono-highlighter with chrome lids vs. the mono-orange Beavers with black lids. Oregon's combo of chrome-yellow-yellow makes its first appearance since 2014 win against Michigan State. This chrome helmet appears to be quite similar to the 2020 Rose Bowl helmet, but instead of the nightmare green wings, it looks like solid black since the rest of the yellow parts use black as accent color.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Week 3: November 21, 2020 "Ohana"
The Ducks pulled out their first "themed" uniform of the season. It's an homage to almost-black, neon green, and Polynesia. It's the first special uniform since September 2017, when they had an anti-cancer one-off uniform. This is also the first mono-black set since week 3 of 2018. Loyal readers might remember the 2016 season (4-8), when each week revealed uniforms that were wildly different and usually came with a "story." This has the feel of those days, but albeit more subtle and, honestly, merchandized by Nike stores.
Duck Territory does a great job describing it, so I won't bother repeating it.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Friday, November 6, 2020
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Nightmare Green to start the 2020 season!
2020 has been a nightmare for most, and Oregon is banking on their good luck in their Nightmare Green uniforms. This Saturday's initial game vs. Stanford will sport the dark green jerseys and pants, with the yellow helmets.
Going back 11 years of my own records, they have not worn this combo of yellow/green/green since 2009.
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Checkout my 11-years worth of uniform combo spreadsheet
Friday, September 11, 2020
Oregon vs. Ohio State Recent History
This weekend would have been the game-of-the-year for Oregon: highly-ranked Ohio State coming into Autzen Stadium—for the first time since 1967—to play highly-ranked Oregon.
The previous nine meetings between the Ducks and Buckeyes have all been Duck losses, with the last two being quite memorable. The 0-9 record is the worst overall mark against any Oregon opponent. Pre-pandemic, this matchup would have been the marquis matchup of this college football weekend, but both the Pac-12 and Big-10 announced postponing football this fall.
Looking back at the most recent uniform meetings of these two teams:
Jan 12, 2015: CFP National Championship Game
Arlington, TX—Oregon 20, Ohio State 42
The Ducks followed a recent uniform trend by wearing NO green or yellow, and opting for white/black/silver combination, while the Buckeyes went silver, scarlet, gray It seems odd to me that Oregon would actually use silver in their uniform, since tOSU has that as a school color!
Thursday, January 2, 2020
2019-2020 In Review (Nightmare Green made for a Dream season)
Now that the "Grandaddy" has been put to bed, we can look back on the Oregon Ducks of 2019-20. This was their best season in five years and one of their most "ordinary" uniform seasons in many years. Under head coach Mario Cristobal, the Ducks have turned in a solid two years of uniforms that establishes their mature look after 20 years of "bleeding edge" tech and some very impressive experiments that have always been the talk of the CFB world—good or bad!
A theme last year was going mono for most of the outfits, but this year, they have done a good job mixing it up. If anything they might be criticized for their too-dark "Nightmare Green" (I'm not a huge fan, but they have won in it, so can't complain too much) But by my count, that dark green, which replaced black this season, was the most used item in each of the three categories. A welcome trend is the general lack of all-white or silver/gray, which they famously loose in. They bucked the trend in the one game they wore silver/white when they did actually beat UW on the road.The one other complaint I have about this season—after the heavy use of Nightmare Green—is the lack of a signature old-school mix of green and yellow. Not once did they mix yellow and their brighter green. At least in years past they would do a "throwback" yellow/green/yellow or use their sets to make that combo. I think the main reason for this is the fact that the yellow parts use black accents so look funny with the apple green parts. BUT I'd have loved the Civil War to have yellow jerseys and green helmet/pants.
A rundown of their looks:
- True Mono (head-foot) : 5 games
- Semi Mono (helmet does not match) : 3 games
- Repeat outfits: 2 outfits (mono apple green, mono dark green)
- Most common combo: Nightmare Green mono in 3 games
- Yellow/Green/Yellow traditional "old-school" look: 0
Unique helmets: 5 (this has got to be a recent history low)
- Dark Green helmet: 5
- Apple Green helmet: 4
- Yellow helmet: 3
- Chrome helmet: 2 (Rose bowl has dark green wings)
Unique jerseys: 5
- Dark Green jersey: 4
- Yellow jersey: 3
- White jersey with apple green numbers: 3
- White jersey with dark green numbers: 2
- Apple Green jersey: 2
Unique pants: 4
- Dark Green pants: 5
- Yellow pants: 4
- Apple Green pants: 3
- White pants: 2
Biggest win: 77-6 vs. Nevada: Mono Apple Green
Best Wins:
56-24 USC: Yellow/White/Yellow
35-31 UW: Chrome/White/White
37-15 Utah: Mono Nightmare Green
28-27 Wisconsin: Chrome/Nightmare Green
Losses:
21-27 vs. Auburn: Dark Green/White/Dark green
28-31 vs. ASU: Apple Green/White/White
Can't wait till next season!
Can't wait till next season!
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Rose Bowl: Jan 1, 2020
This game featured the use of the mono Nightmare Green paired with a chrome helmet with nightmare green wings. Obviously this is a call-back to the 2012 Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin that featured the first use of the Chrome helmets at UO, paired with the then-dark green. This provided for a VERY similar look for the two Rose Bowl, eight years apart. Thankfully for the Ducks, the game was a similar seesaw battle with a slim Oregon victory.
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| 2020 Rose Bowl. New York Times photo. |
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| 2012 Rose Bowl. Getty Images photo. |
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