The Black and White Civil War matchup

With the Ducks and Beavers—teasing their uniforms for the Civil War—we now get a mostly black and white game, with the Ducks ironically being the most black. I love a good color-on-color Civil War—and think most CFB rivalry games should be that way if possible.

I'll update with real game pics, but here is the matchup:

Don't get me wrong, these uniforms might be fine on their own, but together, what a snore fest. And the blame falls on both teams! UO choosing such a black heavy special set and OSU not choosing orange and white! And this OSU graphic with all its orange background makes it look nice. But this is what the game SHOULD be from 2 weeks ago when UO and the other OSU played at Autzen.

OR better yet how about a redo of this game (with Oregon winning please) from 2022:

OR if you must go heavy on black and white....a game like this from 2010 which is my top 5 most memorable Civil Wars:

Week 4: Civil War September 20, 2025

Civil War week and Oregon is flying high and Oregon State is floundering. It will be a blowout, but at least Oregon is trying to cheer up the Beavers by wearing their school color? to the funeral for OSU. While my opinion about the uniform is mixed it has great details that you can read about here.

Notes:

• First time they have worn a white helmet since week 4 in 2022
• First time ever they have worn white over black jersey and pants
• First asymmetrical helmet with two different wing styles
• First use of true shiny gold elements, and marble texture

Shoe Duck Phil Night uniform

Oregon unveiled their "Shoe Duck" uniform to honor Phil Knight. They will wear it for this weekend's Civil War game. To not reinvent the wheel, I'll just link to several really good write-ups about it here:

Our own Phil Hecken on Uni-watch

https://uni-watch.com/2025/09/15/oregon-ducks-unveil-new-shoe-duck-uniforms-honoring-phil-knight/

The official Oregon announcement

https://goducks.com/news/2025/9/14/football-rivalry-uniform-honors-impact-of-shoe-duck

A good overview by Uniswag

https://www.uniswag.com/blog/oregon-honors-phil-knight-with-shoe-duck-tribute-uniform

Here is my honest opinion: I'm all for honoring Phil and the legacy Nike and the lore of the waffle iron etc. But this is giving me the vibe of the over-storytelling uniforms that the Ducks wore in the 4-8 2016 season. Plus wearing black for the Civil War game against your rival who wears black?? I hope the Beavers wear a lot of orange with the their white, to give the matchup some life from a distance.  If this was green and gold with black and white accents would please me more. The small details are kinda lost from a distance and nobody will understand the backstory for some components.

Week 3: September 13, 2025

Oregon's first conference road trip takes them to Northwestern to play the Wildcats for only the second time in history. This yellow/white/yellow combo is an old-school classic, but not much recently. They have worn it only once in each of these years: 2024, 2021 Fiesta Bowl loss, 2019, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012. Before 2012 the last time was 1998. The Ducks did not have a yellow helmet from 1998-2009. 1998 was last time they wore a yellow helmet with green facemask too!

Week 2: September 6, 2025

Mono green for the Ducks vs Oklahoma State. A similar look to the 2024 opener, but with green facemask. Oddly this year and last it was  green jersey for the first two games! This combo was not used in 2023, but worn twice in 2022 (2 losses). Typically this all-green look has been used in non-conference or for Civil War, but was most famous for the 2015 Rose Bowl victory.

Week 1: August 30, 2025

 

The Ducks are back in action and wearing a pre -998 classic combo made from their "Generation O" throwbacks from last season, but with a new twist: yellow helmet with green wings for the first time. They wore yellow/green/yellow only once last season and this is only the 10th time in last decade they have worn this classic.

Looking back and ranking Oregon's 2024-25 uniforms

Now that the Ducks have ended their wonderful/horrible 13-1 season (see the spreadsheet here), 

I take a look at color and combo trends:

• 14 unique combos (no repeat)
• 2 complete mono
• 6 sandwich combos (helmet/pants match)
• 5  uneven combos (2 out of 3 match)
• 1 mixed (all 3 different)
• heavy use of green in pre-conference
• almost NO green in-conference
• heavy yellow/black in-conference
• chrome/gray only after week 10
• GREEN: 10 items
• YELLOW: 8 items
• WHITE: 9 items
• BLACK: 11 items
• GRAY:1 item
• CHROME: 3 items
• No one helmet color dominated

Here is my personal ranking of their 2024-25 uniforms. As with my ranking last year I have a methodology that leans toward:

• favoring green and yellow uniforms
• like "sandwich" looks that have matching helmet/pants over ones where adjacent parts are matching
• all three elements mono is ok, but not preferred
• dislike combos that have no use of school colors
• dislike white pants paired with dark uppers/non-matching uppers
• I am not a traditionalist only, but this season the school colors were throwback

This season had no real dogs until late, so even my least favorite set might be a decent one in years past. The one thing that hurt them this season was the fact that they had a ful set of colors to choose from but some colors were in Throwback look and other in Modern look, so that limited the mixing of the two.

From least favorite to most favorite:

14. Big 10 Championship Game: The result was good, but I just found the set a bit dull, even with the bright helmet. Maybe green pants would have helped?