Oregon to Wear Opponents Colors

If it's red and blue, it must be Arizona week.

In their endless pursuit of outdoing themselves, Nike announced their next outrageous step in the evolution of Oregon's football uniforms. The two time Pac-10 champions will seek the first Pac-12 title while wearing the colors of each of their league opponents.
This Saturday, look for the blue and red Arizona Wildcats to take on the red and blue Oregon Ducks. Against Cal, blue and yellow. WSU will see their own crimson and silver reflected back at them, and so on.

For all the logic and reasoning behind a chosen uniform color scheme, this approach was not borne out of sportsmanship.

"Ya, it's a statement thing," said Nike founder and president of Oregon Athletics, Phil Knight. "It's designed to say to the opponents, 'Not only will we beat you, we'll look better in your own colors while doing it.' It just takes 'Just Do It' to a whole new level."

Purple and gold will never have
looked so good in Seattle.

Asked if this is a good time to create this controversy in the face of pending punishments coming from the NCAA, Knight said, "This couldn't be a BETTER time. If someone wants to hit you in the chin, you stick it out and let'em swing away. Then it's your turn. Oregon's message to their opponents is, 'Hey, don't like us wearing your colors? Do something about it.'"

"Let the other teams try to beat my Ducks," Knight added. "And let the NCAA take away a couple of stupid scholarships, limit some phone calls, and put us on double secret probation. Big deal!
Oh by the way, in the time it took me to answer your question, Oregon ran three plays and scored on your ass."

Asked if he was drunk, Knight replied, "NO. I'm just old and tired of this sh*t. Furthermore, I'm mad at the other Pac-10 teams."

You mean Pac-12?

"WHATEVER. After that loss to LSU, Oregon will need to beat all the quality opponents they can to climb back into the race. Amongst the other 11 teams in the league, whatta ya got? You got exactly 1-1/2 teams who are able to put their shoes on the correct feet, wipe the snot off their noses and stand toe-to-toe with the Ducks." Stanford and a sanction-crippled USC. That's it!" 

"So once again, Oregon has to take it upon themselves to make the rest of the country notice. And Oregon will have to walk on to the field wearing the other team's colors just to kick them in the butts and maybe get some decent competition out of them.  Beating these teams? That's not the problem. We have to try to make these games interesting."

"Take Arizona this week. Their last two opponents, Oklahoma State and Stanford, each scored 37 points on the Wildcats. Mark my words, OREGON WILL SCORE MORE. And if the Arizona fans don't like it, they can just behave like they always have and spit and throw whiskey bottles and batteries at our team and cheerleaders -- only this time they'll be doing it to their own colors."

Instead of using Arizona's own official colors, Nike designed Oregon's uniforms
with Wildcats coach Mike Stoops' face in mind. The color names are
Lava Face Red and Popping Vein Blue.

NIke exec and vice-president of Oregon Football, Tinker Hatfield was asked if he agreed with Knight's reasoning behind the color scheme.

"To me it's not so much about the competition," Hatfield said, "It's about looking good. And the fans of each of Oregon's opponents will see a superior look over their own team in every way."

Hatfield added, "The Civil War game was easy to figure out. Against the Beavers, the Ducks will just go all black. It pisses the Beavers off whenever Oregon wears black, like they own the color or something.  And thank God Oregon doesn't play UCLA this year. That's the one color combination we couldn't make work. Nobody can look good in their Leisure Suit Blue and Baby Barf Yellow."

Oregon at Arizona. Saturday evening. 7:15 Pacific on ESPN2.

After Arizona, Oregon goes head-to-head against the Cal Bears.

--KB