post 10: Nothing uniform about Oregon football fashion.

The worst-kept secret in gridironing hit the striped runway yesterday as the mighty University of Oregon Fighting Ducks released their new fall couturf collection during Senior Day. Since no week of football is complete without somebody in the media yammering on about the latest look, someone was smart enough to send one of the new "army black primer" hats to the gang at ESPN.. who, remarkably, did not take the opportunity to use the helmet as a barf bag.

When the team hit the tunnel for the opener against Arizona yesterday, bursting into the sunlight with the metally-looking feather-armor-steak knives on the shoulders glinting away, topped with the I AM IRON MAN black Rustoleum helmets, the contrast with the almost-black-green jerseys resembling nothing less than an an outtake from Starship Troopers.. well, it's no wonder they were leading 45-17 at halftime. It took Arizona's team half a game to realize they didn't just have to sit there and be shredded by shoulder-mounted Cuisinart blades.

And if this isn't enough, the word on the virtual street is that yet another complete redesign is due for 2010. Apparently, "uniformity" is so twentieth century.

The reactions to all these uni changes typically fall along generational lines. Those who feel American Football is a game of tradition, the good-ol'-boy types who revere JoePa, the horseshoe, TD Jesus, Hook'em, Roll Tide, and that blasted Conquest theme, almost unanimously dog on Oregon's style efforts. 

So you see posts like this, and polls like this, and everyone laughs except for members of two groups:

• Recruits
• UO Athletic Dept
  

The kids like this stuff. Yes, some of the combinations have been pretty nasty -- I still think the abomination they rolled out for the Vegas Bowl in '05 was at least partly responsible for the pandemic of mental influenza that was their performance..

Whoever decided that a low-value olive-green would look good with a neon yellow really should have their eyes, if not their head, examined, before they are taken out and shot.

But Oregon doesn't have a world-class school of sports marketing for nothing. They get talked about. The people who make these decisions don't give an armpit fart what some SEC blogger thinks of their uniforms. They want to attract attention, assist with recruiting, get free media coverage, and ultimately make the U a more attractive destination for potential students. It's the modern, viral equivalent of "just spell the name right."

Since I remember a time not long ago when it was common for eastern media types and college football fans to mistake Oregon for the substantially inferior rural agricultural college up the river, I say kudos to all efforts at differentiation enforcement.

And -- to take an objective viewpoint -- it's not as if Oregon's was all Penn State with its uniform combinations through history:

Alex Molden in the '95 Rose Bowl..

Bill Musgrave circa 1989..

Reuben Droughns, 1998...

or Reuben Droughns, 1999. (This was, I think, the first uniform change directly influenced by Nike.)

None of this is anything new.  Unis change all the time. If they're ugly, well, so's yo mama.

Something tells me the football traditionalists will not be happy until the Ducks go back to the early 70s look of Fouts and Not-Yet-Rashad.

Then again, they'd have to wear adidas, so that'll never happen...