Oregon Ducks reveal throwback-inspired Webfoot uniforms

Well, would you look at that: The Oregon Ducks football team is at it again! They’ve come up with yet another unique uniform combination and still have yet to wear the same uniform template for two games in a row this season. Before we discuss the uniforms for their upcoming game this weekend, we should take a look at what they wore during their loss to Washington State this past Saturday.

They referred to these as the “Men of Oregon” uniforms, and as far as Oregon is concerned, this is probably one of their most conservative looks in recent memory. Rarely do you see the Ducks wear a uniform as simple as this when it comes to actually wearing school colors, so it was actually a jarring change of pace for the Ducks.

However, the Ducks have returned to form and gone deep into their catalog of uniform ideas for their latest uniform. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on the Webfoots uniforms.

So, where did this nickname come from? Apparently, before Oregon became officially known as the Ducks, their nickname was the Webfoots. As the school points out on the website that they used to unveil the uniforms, this wasn’t exactly a duck-related nickname, either.

The nickname, however, was not a synonym for a duck. It was rather a term that had originated in Massachusetts during the 1700s to describe locals who lived in wet conditions. The term was proliferated by miners coming northward from California as a pejorative descriptor of the locals of the waterlogged Willamette Valley and had grown in popular usage by the 1860s. By the time the University of Oregon began forming sports teams for intercollegiate play in the last decade of the 19th century, the term Webfoot had become synonymous with Oregonians.

The uniform eschews the school colors of green and gold in favor of the Oregon flag’s colors of blue and gold. The flag is even placed prominently on the matte-black helmet.

If these uniforms look familiar to you, then that’s because the team actually wore slightly different versions of these for the Spring Game earlier this year. Of course, they couldn’t just wear those uniforms again, because apparently it’s against the law in Eugene, Oregon for the university’s football team to wear the same exact uniform twice in one calendar year.

With that being said, this is a nice change of pace. Oregon is always going to be up to something when it comes to their uniforms, so if you accept it then it can be fun to follow along with what they’re doing. What do you all think of these uniforms though?