Oregon Unis: Love 'em or hate them, you talked about them
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by user Deuelio
With the unveiling of yet another line of new uniforms, the Oregon Ducks drew the ire of nearly every football fan, analyst, and/or non-duck football player in the nation. What these people fail to realize, is that these uniforms are not designed for them. Rather, in the style of FUBU, they are designed by players for players. It is not some crusty white guy in a cubicle, or an advertising executive with a soul patch designing a “cutting edge” and “edgy” uniform.
Look no further than the uniform’s design team, a group of upperclassmen Duck football players including starting QB Dennis Dixon, H-back Dante Rosario, former TE Tim Day, free safety JD Nelson and wide receiver JD Nelson. This group of players is not like you and I. In more ways than one. And this is why I love the uniforms.
- The players love them. And I’m sorry, this means something. Think of it, if you reach a certain level of success, you can be involved in designing uniforms and modeling them on billboards up and down the west coast. I’ve got a feeling that many 18-yr olds relish this possibility. The fact that players designed them proves to me that they are legit and gives them credibility in my mind. What some crusty journalist or tradition conscious college football fan thinks is irrelevant. Besides, there is no tradition in college football any more. Sure, uniforms may not have changed but everything else has, so tradition, shmadition.
- Oregon needs publicity. I’m a Duck fan and can admit that they need to drive the public’s consciousness. Since East Coasters rarely get to see Duck games (this is a whole other article unto itself), they must use marketing as much as on-field success to gain notoriety. According to the administrators of Oregon’s athletic website goducks.com, the press release announcing the new uniforms was the second highest web traffic in the site’s history. Of course, many were checking into see if the jerseys were indeed for real or if they were hallucinating.
- Oregon has always been cutting edge whether it be in recruiting, uniforms or mascots (RIP Robo Duck…thankfully). Several years ago, the Ducks released comic books to recruits that depicted the players having success and winning accolades at the U of O. Done by the Oregon Sports Marketing Department, the NCAA was quick to nix the comic books for some reason even though they had originally been cleared by the Pac-10 and the NCAA. The NCAA also nixed the use of Oregon’s metallic green hummer and charter plane, both of which were featured prominently in the comics. All this is to say, the Ducks have always been ahead of the curve in many ways. Their football tradition is thin, there is no arguing that. Fans of teams like Auburn, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame and the like will scoff at Oregon’s lack of football prowess but I think they’re a little worried about a sleeping power in the great northwest.
- Cutting edge in recruiting and also cutting edge in facilities. It is widely believed that the Ducks have some of the best facilities on the West Coast. The Ducks built the first indoor practice facility on the west coast and have state of the art locker rooms featuring plasma TV’s and fingerprint door locks. The University of Oregon has widely been known to be cutting edge. There’s a difference between “marketing cutting edge” and “real cutting edge.” Marketing cutting edge is some group of executives telling whoever will listen that something is cutting edge. Real cutting edge is something that is new and changes peoples’ views and thoughts. The Ducks, while not always popular, have changed the way people view facilities, recruiting and uniforms.
- Which brings me back to the uniforms. They’re cutting edge in their design and performance, in addition to their colors. According to the Oregon Ducks website, the uniforms will “help to diminish the weight of the uniforms by 28 percent when dry and help make them 34 percent lighter under wet conditions. The jerseys and pants also encompass a diamond-patterned grid on the shoulders and knees, respectively, to improve the durability of the product in areas susceptible to greater wear.” I’m not sure what it all means nor do I know how it will affect performance, but it rains a lot in Oregon so the fact that they’ll be lighter than the opponents’ jerseys’ in Autzen will mean…probably nothing. But still, nobody else has it, so it’s cutting edge.
Whether these advances lead to more wins for the Ducks remains to be seen, but it has put the Ducks back in the national spotlight. When you’re a fringe program, like Oregon is at this point, you have to make a name amongst young people. Young people like to look different, they like to stand out, and what better way to stand out than wearing uniforms the vast majority of the public hates?
Date
Tue 07/18/06, 8:01 pm EST
