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.
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.
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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
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:
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| Joey Harrington shows off the consistent home/way look of first seasons of the Nike rebrand. 1999-2002 |
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.
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.
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.
USC comes to Autzen for what looked like a huge matchup earlier in the season, but the stakes are much higher for Oregon. The night game atmosphere and the fact that Oregon is playing for the heights of the postseason made the Ducks dig for something bold. Not as dramatic as a blackout/ninja that fans were hoping for though. (I can see why: 2011, #3 ranked Ducks in ninja all black got beat at Autzen and ruined the natty chance)
This black-yellow-black combo is being worn for the 7th time, and the first time since 2021, and seemingly the first time vs USC. This look was more common in the Chip Kelly years.
Looking back at this heated rivalry, only the last 30 years of it have been competitive, coinciding with the mid 1990s Phil Night-led Nike rejuvenation of the Duck facilities, uniforms and marketing of Oregon. That paired with a bit of a dry spell for USC in the 1990s before Pete Carroll made USC hugely relevant in the 2000s, but ironically only beat Oregon half his games.
According to Winsipedia, Oregon has gone 12-7 in the games played since 1993. But from 1915-1993, Oregon only went 10-32-2!
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| https://www.winsipedia.com/games/oregon/vs/usc |
I thought it might be nice to look back at some of the more interesting modern USC-UO games and what the Ducks wore:
The Ducks sched for next fall was announced today!
The Ducks back at home—fresh from a drubbing of Utah in SLC and a #6 place in the initial CFB rankings— are wearing one of the drabbest combos they can think of. I thought last week's black-white-black was dreary, but Oregon is going for chrome and Nightmare green. With a gray and rainy day in Autzen it makes for a dull combo.
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| 2020 Rose Bowl |
That 2020 game was the first and last time they wore Chrome helmets (but with black wings) paired with mono Nightmare green. And chrome helmets are being worn for the third time this season. In 9 helmets they have won chrome 3 times, black 3 times, apple green twice and yellow once. I'm hopiong they finish the season with more school color helmets!
It may be me, but the exact shade of green seems much more olive drab brown the last few times they have work it.
Oregon went black/white/black for the first time in 8 years, in what turns out to be a relatively rare combo! They have worn this combo only three times: 2009, 2010 and 2015–all important road victories. So maybe they were chanelling that good history?
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| 2009 victory @ Washington |
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| 2010 victory @ WSU |
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| 2015 victory @ Stanford |
That is if you don't count Nightmare Green as black...
They last wore Nightmare/white/Nightmare in 2019, and wore Nightmare/Eggshell last season. The black helmets with carbon fiber wings made their third appearance of the year.
Revealed a few weeks back, the Ducks are wearing their throwbacks for Homecoming vs the all-white Washington State. See my full post on them here.
One of the biggest games in the 100+ years of the UW-UO rivalry! Both ranked in the top 10. ESPN Gameday in town too.
So the Ducks pull out what has become a standard in the repertoire for "big" games...the eggshell, and more generically. IMHO, eggshell is one of the least appealing uniforms since the adventure that was 2016. This time they pair it with the chrome helmet.
They have worn eggshell jerseys four times before: two games each in 2021 and 2022. In both those seasons they did eggshell jersey AND pants once. Last season they won vs Arizona and Colorado in eggshell, and in 2021 they won their debut game with them against UCLA but lost the Pac-12 Championship game in them. So 3-1 record.
I have a long-standing pet peeve that the Ducks tend to wear white/silver/black in high profile games, so I am not the most pleased with this combo against UW. Just win baby!
I've done several blog posts on their big game attire luck over the years:
Wearing white helmets in big games
With the Ducks on their off week prepping for the HUGE clash in Seattle October 14, I thought it would be a good time to look at the rather ambiguous release of their fan-favorite throwbacks this last week.
They did not announce a game they would wear this set for. (update: they wore for WSU Oct. 21) This year's UW-UO Oct. 14 game is in Seattle—and honestly 2024 would be more appropriate timing due to the 1994 and 2014 history and the UW game being home next year.
Here's hoping they wear them again for Civil War! It will be the last of that matchup for the foreseeable future.
But I bet the main reason for this announcement is for merchandise sales! AND presumably wear it again next year?? Most fans would support making this an annual tradition much like Utah does with their throwbacks.
As most of you uni-freaks know, these are based on their uniforms of the 1980s-1990s. (most of the pundits this week have said these pay tribute to 1984, but to me that feels off, since 1994 was the most iconic and much better year.) I was a student at UO from 1992-1997 so I have seen these uniforms in Autzen stadium!
The last time they wore a version of these was in 2014 for the 20th anniversary of the 1994 Kenny Wheaton "The Pick" which is the seminal play/game for pretty much the entire Duck-universe. It catapulted the Ducks to the Rose Bowl that season and began what has become a modern history of winning and CFB-leading uniform indulgence.
The high-flying Ducks hit the road against a struggling Stanford. This matchup has been great the last 15 years and a bit scary for Duck fans. The last time UO went to Palo Alto in 2021 as a favorite they lost a heartbreaker. Check out this great recap of the recent rivalry!
A nice classic combo of green-white-green. They have worn similar most every year, with Apple green appearing since 2015 and darker green the standard before then. This is the first time this season with green pants. Second time using this helmet.
The last time they wore this combo was a week 9 win at Cal in 2022. In 2021 they wore this combo in a loss at Utah. In 2020 it was their Pac-12 Championship victory ensemble. In 2019 they wore this combo at Stanford.
For their highly-anticipated home game vs Deon Sanders & Co. Colorado, the Ducks opted for a black and green combo. While it's a decent uniform, I question why so much black vs. a team that wears black a lot-especially helmets and pants. Let's hope that Colorado goes for all white like their game vs. TCU (but hope that the outcome for CU is different.)
The black helmet with carbon fiber wings appears to be the same as game 1. Black pants worn for the first time since last season's game 2. The last time they wore this black/green/black combo was a week 4 game in 2021. Before that you have to go back to 2017 and 2011 for the only other times this combo has come up.
The uniform reveal included "heat activated color changing" cleats paired with real chameleon! which seem cool but are just a Nike marketing stunt.
Against Hawaii, Oregon opts for a really bright and colorful combo. I'ma huge fan of when they use their green and yellow, and even more so when it is not in mono. This green-green-yellow is not a common combo, and this appears to be only the second time they have worn it since Civil War 2013 (dark green helmet though). the most recent was vs. Stanford last year.
For their first road trip of the season—to Texas Tech—the Ducks went all white with chrome helmets.
This is the first chrome helmet since the 2020 season (Rose Bowl in January and later game 5). The chrome helmet was first worn famously in the 2012 Rose Bowl. But they were a very common thing in the Taggart and Cristobal years. They wore them five times in the 2017 season; three times in 2018; and twice in 2019.
Chrome with mono white under was a pretty common scheme in those years and they wore this exact look seven times in just the 2107, 2018 and 2019 seasons. And the last 2 years this has been the most common road jersey/pant combo.
In the last few years, gray/silver and white has not been the luckiest for big games or OOC games, but the road victory against Ohio State in 2021 hopefully put that to rest. Thankfully the current white jerseys have a good amount of green accents to offset the curse of non-school-colors.
As I mentioned in my weekly post about week 1, the Ducks wore a carbon fiber item for the first game in a long time. The game featured a matte black helmet with carbon fiber wings. This item looks to be a new helmet variation. The closest you can get to this is the Polynesian version from 2020 that had dark green/black helmet with very subtle black patterned wings.
Black helmets have become a common part of Oregon's uniform of late, but carbon fiber usually made appearances as the base helmet shell. It first appeared during the magical 2010 season and was a common element throughout the Mariota years and pretty much stopped being used after the 2014 season.
The Oregon company that got it started was called Hydro Graphics, and interestingly the first game that the carbon fiber shell appeared in was game 3 vs. Portland State—the same opponent as today's game.
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2010/10/glamorizing_college_football_h.html
Here are some great examples of carbon fiber used on helmets:
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| 2010 vs Portland State: The first time it appeared |
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| 2010 Civil War : a classic game that sent the Ducks to the NCG! |
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| 2011 National Championship Game vs Auburn |
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| 2012 game vs Stanford: Ranked #1 they lost to #14 Stanford |
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| 2012 vs. Fresno State |
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| 2013 vs Washington |
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| 2015 National Championship game vs Ohio State: seemingly the last time they have worn carbon fiber wings |
As I expected against Portland State—a team that wears green and black—the Ducks are wearing a yellow-heavy ensemble with black helmet with "carbon fiber" wings.
The last time the ducks wore this combo of black-yellow-yellow was a game 2 win vs Virginia in 2016 during the Mark Helfrich era. But they did wear nightmare-yellow-yellow in week 3 of 2019.
Carbon fiber was a motif used a lot in the last 15 years but not much lately. Carbon fiber was especially prominent in the 2010-2014 era between the two National Championship games. It was first was worn in the Civil War in 2020 that marked the perfect Pac-12 season for Oregon.
