LOS ANGELES -- Oregon's football team is either the nation's best-dressed or the nation's worst-dressed -- depending on your new-school or old-school college football fashion tastes -- but at the very least one can say for sure that no other team's garb is more talked about.
Nike made sure it would be a hot topic during Rose Bowl preparations by revealing this week its latest space-age design, which the Ducks will don in the Rose Bowl on Monday.
The most dramatic addition is the reflective helmet, which suggests Darth Vader. The helmet was different enough to merit a question to Wisconsin's players on Wednesday.
Question: It looks like a big mirror. Have you seen the helmet? If so, are you worried about any reflection?
Wisconsin QB Russell Wilson confessed that he had not seen the helmet. He said he was "sure they're good-looking helmets" but he wasn't really worried about the Ducks helmets and whether he might be able to see his reflection in one.
"Oregon is a great football team," Wilson said. "They have, I guess, the fashion going on where they can wear whatever they want and look pretty good in it. But that's not what the game comes down to."
It's interesting that the Ducks mostly agree. Oregon's players embrace their varied looks, but few seem to spend much time thinking about it. Coach Chip Kelly insists that the uniform combinations be planned out in the preseason so it doesn't become a focus in the locker room.
"That stuff don't matter to us," safety Eddie Pleasant said. "It's nice to have it, but we don't care about that."
Added cornerback Anthony Gildon, "The jersey is cool to have, but it's more something for everybody that's looking in [at the program] than within the team."
Everybody seems to agree the players inside, not the uniforms, win games.
That said, sources who requested anonymity due to the fact they don't exist, said that the Ducks' lime green socks and shoes in last year's national title game against Auburn cost the Ducks four points from the football gods.