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CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Coming here was not the only option. It was just the best one for Jonathan Drouin.

Every choice has its consequences. Other NHL teams reached out to Drouin and his representatives about joining their club. Those clubs had more salary cap space and offered more money than what the Colorado Avalanche presented to Drouin, which was a one-year contract worth $825,000 — a substantial dip from the $5.5 million annual salary he earned over the past six seasons.

Every choice also has its advantages. Drouin makes this clear while sitting in his stall at the Avs’ rustic practice facility just south of downtown Denver. One of them has to do with the stall just to the right of Drouin. Or rather, who occupies that space. It’s Avs superstar center and perennial Hart Trophy candidate Nathan MacKinnon. They’re best friends and have known each other for more than a decade, dating to when they were teammates with the Halifax Mooseheads in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

Another advantage is what playing for the Avs represents. It was just this time last year that the Avs were seeking to win a consecutive Stanley Cup. They navigated a series of challenges to win the Central Division and finish with the best regular-season record in the Western Conference, only to then have their title aspirations cut short with a first-round exit by the upstart Seattle Kraken.

Championships are how this current iteration of the Avs is being defined. One key to that has been bringing in players and helping them find higher levels of success than they’d seen before. Forwards such as Andre Burakovsky, Nazem Kadri, Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin all set career highs while playing with Colorado. Defenseman Devon Toews went from a top-four option to a low-key Norris Trophy candidate since playing here. Goaltenders such as Alexandar Georgiev, Philipp Grubauer and Darcy Kuemper also enjoyed the strongest seasons of their careers with the Avs.

Is Drouin next? Can he parlay this opportunity into helping the Avs win their fourth Cup while also showing at 28 years old that the best is yet to come?

“With the team here, everyone could probably achieve their career numbers with the way they play and the way they move the puck,” Drouin said. “But that wasn’t really the main reason [why he signed with the Avalanche]. I don’t really have any goals for me other than finding my game back and helping this team in any way I can.”


SCARS CAN OFTEN go beyond being marks on flesh. They provide illustrations into the pain of a life. In Drouin’s case, he has two scars — one on each wrist — from the surgeries he has endured over the past few years.

Remnants of those incisions are noticeable, not just on Drouin’s body but his mind as well. Those scars were born out of pain and have created doubt, but now they have made Drouin optimistic. This is the first time in a while Drouin said he didn’t spend the offseason rehabbing from wrist surgery before starting his workouts.

Having confidence in a pair of fully healthy wrists is what has made the beginning of Avs’ training camp fruitful for him. Drouin has provided more than enough evidence to show that his wrists are fine. It’s the passes he plays during drills or the shots he takes.

Everything about the way his wrists move is fluid, smooth and uninterrupted — three traits that have not always been the easiest to attain in a career that has faced setbacks.

Expectations have long followed Drouin. Recording a pair of 100-point seasons in the QMJHL does that. So does going No. 3 overall in the 2013 draft to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He played three seasons in Tampa, with his final year there amplifying those expectations as Drouin scored a career-high 21 goals and 53 points.

Friction was also a part of Drouin’s time with the Lightning, which is what eventually led to him being traded to the Montreal Canadiens. Drouin scored 99 points in 158 games in his first two seasons with the Canadiens. Injuries hindered that production, however. In Drouin’s final four seasons, he recorded 87 points in 163 games with 29 points in 58 games in the 2022-23 campaign being his most productive.

Fighting through injuries also came at a time when Drouin was attempting to manage his mental health. He’s open about detailing the life-changing anxiety he experienced more than three years ago.

Drouin said he started experiencing anxiety in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that “being in the bubble didn’t help” — a reference to when the NHL held the 2019-20 Stanley Cup playoffs in bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto.

“The two months in the bubble really lingered,” Drouin said. “I don’t think I could tell you if we didn’t have that bubble I would have been fine or I wouldn’t have had to stop playing. But the bubble and the COVID year in Montreal, we had rules in Canada where you could not leave your house unless you were walking your dog. I’d walk my dog six times a day to get out of my house.”

Drouin also said being a top-three pick and a French Canadian who grew up an hour away from Montreal also contributed to his anxiety. He believed he was ready to carrying those expectations because he grew up watching other players handle them.

“Until you live it,” Drouin said. “No one’s ready for it.”

Longtime NHL agent Allan Walsh, who has known Drouin and represented him since he was a teenager, also grew up in Montreal. Walsh said playing in Montreal comes with “a wholly unique set of challenges and pressures” that no one can fully understand until they encounter it.

Walsh said playing in Montreal means coming off the ice to be greeted by 15 cameras and more than 30 media members on a near-daily basis. There’s also the constant attention that comes when a player is walking down the street, if they visit a local market for groceries or if they eat at a restaurant.

“You want to be welcoming and understand that this is a privileged set of circumstances that you are living under, yet at the same time when things are not going well, it’s just grinding you down every day,” Walsh said. “There’s no getting away from hockey off the ice. What players tend to do in this situation … is you tend to cocoon. You order in your food, you don’t go to the market, you don’t walk down the street, you don’t walk to the park to get some fresh air. You tend to avoid people and crowds. It turns into an isolating and insulated life and that is not always the healthiest lifestyle.”

Although Drouin wasn’t performing to the level he or the fans wanted, it wasn’t the primary reason why he struggled with anxiety.

Sleeping was challenging. Drouin would lie awake at night for hours, only thinking about hockey. He would think about the next game or what happened in the game the day before. Those thoughts forced him to replay an entire game in his head. Every single sequence that he was involved in played in his mind as if it were on a continuous loop that could only be interrupted when he realized he only had two hours to sleep before practice.

“I didn’t really go to sleep until I got help and really someone to talk to about the perspective of getting sleep and getting rest,” Drouin said. “At one point, it was just normal for me. I thought it was normal. I didn’t want help. I didn’t feel like I needed help. When you’re sleeping two or three hours a night, you can’t function as an athlete. You can’t perform the way you want to and your body is not responding either.”

Drouin said he realized he needed help when the Canadiens were in Calgary to play the Flames during the 2020-21 season. During that season, the NHL created what was basically an all-Canadian North Division so those teams could travel across Canada to comply with the nation’s COVID-19 restrictions.

“My body literally shut off on me. I remember that first practice and came to the hotel room and started feeling sick, started feeling tired and started having attacks,” Drouin said. “It was new for me and I thought I was sick. I thought I had a fever or something. Obviously, the doctor came and saw me and there was no fever and now I was even more worried about why I was feeling this way.”

Drouin said that “losing control of my body and having my body control me,” was the breaking point. He called his parents and close friends to open up about what he was experiencing. Drouin described it as one of the hardest and most emotional experiences of his life.

A week after his experience in Calgary, Drouin decided to step away from hockey.

“My parents knew and that was the part that hurt me when I was on the phone with them,” Drouin said. “My parents saw it before I saw it. When that phone call happened, I knew it was time to focus on me for once and get better. I’m still young but I was younger then and knew I still had a lot of years left in the NHL. I couldn’t follow that up for 10 years to live that way and handle that stuff by myself. I knew I needed help. Ever since then, my life has been great and I know how to handle those things.”

Opening up about anxiety and undergoing therapy were the first steps toward personal happiness, Drouin said. He found pleasure professionally the past two years in Montreal as well. The organization went through sweeping changes that led to the Canadiens hiring Kent Hughes as their general manager with Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Martin St. Louis becoming head coach.

Drouin said the arrival of Hughes and St. Louis created a sense of newness with the franchise which he believed gave him a clean slate. It also might have contributed to the past two seasons being among the most productive of his career.

While it’s natural to look at his statistics, Drouin explained how he found more positives in his game, allowing him a sense of comfort.

“The last two years have been good and I haven’t had anxiety, nor have the sleeping issues really come back,” Drouin said. “It’s been very positive.”


MONTREAL ALLOWED DROUIN to fulfill a childhood dream of donning those iconic red, blue and white sweaters that made him fall in love with hockey. But the reality of playing in Montreal at this stage of his career and the Canadiens building for the future did not quite align with Drouin’s aspirations to win a Stanley Cup.

There were opportunities elsewhere. Walsh said that there were “multiple teams with offers on the table and all for more money” while Drouin pondered his future.

He decided it was Colorado or bust.

“He was very motivated to reunite with Nate,” Walsh said. “Nate was texting him and calling him several times a day, pushing him to come to Denver and to come together again.”

The decision to join the Avalanche was layered. It started with Drouin’s relationship with MacKinnon, the fact that MacKinnon is one of the best players on the planet and is one of the faces on a team expected to complete for another championship. And Colorado made it clear it wanted Drouin.

Drouin also examined his surroundings. Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has not only won a Stanley Cup, but is the third-longest tenured coach in the NHL behind the Lightning’s Jon Cooper and the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ Mike Sullivan. Having a coach with the longevity and success Bednar and his assistants have and them wanting Drouin also was welcoming.

“Management is also sensitive to the challenges you have had before and is excited to bring you in too,” Walsh said. “Players love to go places where they feel wanted. From July 1, Jonathan felt like Colorado really wanted him. Players in the locker room really wanted him and it gave him a chance to turn things over and get a fresh start somewhere.”

Part of the reason the Avalanche has found success in recent years is how they make new players and their families feel welcomed. MacKinnon, who is an alternate captain, is quite involved in the process.

Several stories have been shared about MacKinnon’s intense nature. One came when Burakovsky joined the Avalanche after he was traded from the Washington Capitals. MacKinnon spent part of the offseason examining Burakovsky’s statistics and advised him to shoot more. Burakovsky recorded his first 20-goal season while scoring what was then a career-best 45 points over 58 games of the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season.

“I think since we have a relationship already it was easier, a little easier for me to kind of do some things that I think he should do on and off the ice,” MacKinnon said. “That’s been a lot easier for a new player. I’m not used to having new players come in that I’m really good friends with. But other than that, I try to make everyone feel welcomed as I can. We have a lot of new faces, so it’s definitely going to be important for us to come together quickly.”

Reuniting with MacKinnon comes with a sense of nostalgia and warm feelings. Drouin smiles when looking back at how MacKinnon would pick him up for school or practices, all while blaring early-2010s hip-hop. Drouin chuckles upon sharing that the biggest difference with the 18-year-old version of MacKinnon who drove him around Halifax versus the 28-year-old who is trying to steer him toward a Stanley Cup is that older MacKinnon is calmer.

Drouin is also realistic. He knows coming to Denver and playing with one of his best friends will be a challenge. Drouin said even as a teenager MacKinnon pushed their teammates considerably. He knows that type of mentality is what has allowed MacKinnon to be one of the best players in the world and also helped the Avs attain a level of success other teams covet.

What Drouin said about MacKinnon on a recent Friday afternoon backs that up. MacKinnon missed practice that day because he wasn’t in Denver or Colorado. He was home in Halifax, where the Mooseheads retired his number.

The following morning, MacKinnon returned, having taken an early morning flight so he could participate on the third day of training camp in late September.

“He hasn’t changed with that part, he was the same in junior where he’d push you to the end of the wall, sees there’s a hole in the wall and wants you to go further,” Drouin said. “I think this is why this team is so good. It looks like there’s a lot of guys who buy into that and become kind of like Nate a little bit. I think that’s why Nate’s had success [because] he’s never really satisfied with anything.”

MacKinnon’s mentality is one thing that defines this iteration of the Avs. Another is how they continue to have success with new players since Bednar and his staff have taken charge.

While Bednar admits that not every new player the Avs have acquired has found their place, there’s evidence that shows a good number of them have. Burakovsky had his three most productive seasons and could have been a three-time 20-goal scorer if not for the pandemic. Kadri went from averaging 0.64 points per game with the Toronto Maple Leafs over 10 seasons to averaging 0.87 points in three seasons with the Avalanche. Lehkonen finished with a career-high 21 goals and 51 points in his first full season with the Avs, while Nichushkin went from a first-rounder who struggled with the Dallas Stars to a hulking two-way presence averaging 0.63 points per game.

What is it about Denver that allows players — especially forwards — to reach the sort of highs they didn’t achieve elsewhere? Bednar said it is a multifaceted process that starts with the front office identifying players whom it believes will excel.

Bednar said if the Avs get those players, the next step is to have them spend time with the team to get acclimated. That gives new players a chance to experience the Avs’ work ethic, how their leaders work, how competitive they are and how much everyone pays attention to details.

Ryan Johansen, who was traded to the Avs in the offseason, echoed those sentiments.

“I remember our last playoff series where they swept up and it felt like there were 20 MacKinnons on the ice and six [Cale] Makars on defense. I’m not kidding. That’s what it felt like,” Johansen said, referencing when he and the Nashville Predators lost to the Avs in a first-round series during the 2022 playoffs. “The speed this team plays with, it’s exciting for me to be a part of it.”

Another newcomer who had a firsthand encounter with it was Ross Colton, who was also traded in the offseason. Colton won a Cup with the Lightning in 2021 and went against the Avs in a six-game Final during the 2022 playoffs.

“The organization I came from had great leadership and guys who knew how to win in the league and you see the same thing here,” Colton said. “Guys who know what it takes to win, how to carry themselves on and off the ice.”

Something else Bednar does with new players is watch 10 of their games from the previous season. He watches how they played early in the season, in the middle and late. He looks for how they performed in good games and bad ones. Bednar said he takes notes to get ideas about how to optimize a player’s usage based on how they operated with their former team.

“When you come in here, you really don’t have a choice but to follow that same thing,” Bednar said. “That’s going to bring out the best in people. I think [Drouin] is a perfect candidate to be able to step in and help us. The first three days of camp, he’s been one of the hardest working guys on the ice. He’s shown real quickness with an ability to make plays and score goals and play with those top guys.”

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‘Our tradition to is to be untraditional’: Inside the lifecycle of an Oregon uniform

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'Our tradition to is to be untraditional': Inside the lifecycle of an Oregon uniform

EUGENE, Ore. — Inside the Marcus Mariota Performance Center, history dangles from wire hangers.

The glitz and glamour surrounding Oregon football is not immediately apparent. This is a practical place — a dimly lit, long hallway inside the second floor of the equipment room furnished with gray built-in closets — created not as a way to showcase, but rather to store the very thing that has become synonymous with the Ducks: their vast array of fabrics, colors and prints.

Among a sea of roughly 800 jerseys, there’s nearly every shade of green — from neon to emerald to forest to army. Here, black or white never look boring, and the yellow used over the years ranges from a Gatorade-colored hue to Cal gold. Splashes of pink, gray, brown, orange, chrome and blue complete the synthetic rainbow.

On this Saturday afternoon following Oregon’s win over Oklahoma State, football equipment administrator Kenny Farr thumbs through pages of dri-fit material and mesh as if flipping through a scrapbook. Every jersey has a story, every color and design a reason for existing at the time as well as an inevitable association that depends on something the style cannot control.

“Some of our best uniforms we’ve ever worn, we lost the games,” Farr said. “It’s hard to mention those, because they looked good, but we didn’t win the game. So it kind of goes down as a jersey I’ll try to forget about and move on to the next.”

Farr isn’t the man behind the jerseys, the designs or even the final decisions of what combinations make it out onto the field. But over the past 15 years, Farr has become a key cog in the enterprise that is Oregon’s uniforms. His role is part manager, part craftsman, part custodian and collector, as well.

“Kenny is the godfather of Oregon football uniforms,” said Quinn Van Horne, one of the senior designers of Oregon’s latest generation of uniforms.

Throughout the past 2½ decades, as Oregon has cycled through nine different versions of its uniforms, nearly 50 iterations and countless more combinations, the fascination over its attire and the ripple effects it has caused inside and outside the program continues. While some teams have rarely wavered from their classic designs and colors over the years, the Ducks have pushed the envelope, creating a unique energy around their ensembles that attracts players and prompts other schools to try and emulate them.

“We don’t have the tradition that Ohio State or USC or Notre Dame or some of those blue bloods have,” Farr said. “So how do you counteract that? Well, you just go full steam ahead the other direction. Our tradition is to be untraditional; we’re going to always push the edge.”


BEFORE THERE WERE so many permutations of Oregon jerseys, before the well-oiled system that produces at least one new uniform every season and a brand-new set of designs every three years was set in place, the concept began with a simple question.

“How do you make a duck look cool?”

Rick Bakas was working for Nike in the mid-to-late 1990s under a subdivision called Team Sports, dedicated to apparel for professional and college teams.

Bakas, alongside a team of fellow designers who were overseen by Nike creative director — and father of Quinn — Todd Van Horne, had just redesigned the Denver Broncos’ uniforms. The success of that redesign, as well as the momentum Oregon created after its appearances in the 1995 Rose Bowl and the 1996 Cotton Bowl (the first game in which Oregon wore all Nike) led to founder Phil Knight and a cadre of Oregon alumni, including longtime Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, tasking Van Horne and his team with a mission: remake the Oregon Ducks.

As he did nearly every year, Bakas attended the Detroit Auto Show in search of inspiration. There, painted across the chassis of a concept car, Bakas found the key that unlocked everything: a type of paint called ChromaFlair, which gave off a sheen that changed colors.

“I was eating a sandwich out there by the lake, and I was feeding some bread to a mallard out there,” Bakas said. “I was looking at its head, and I was like, ‘That paint looks like this mallard’s head.'”

Bakas brought some of those green swatches of the ChromaFlair paint back to Oregon, took them into a studio and pulled out the darkest and the lightest possible versions; those became the core colors of the concept he and the team presented to Knight.

“It’s amazing how much that helped keep that futuristic feel as we got into the ‘O’ design,” Bakas said. “The project really gave us a chance to marry the two together where we could think about the entire head to toe, how everything was going to look.”

Van Horne believes that even though the color-changing helmets were one of the most important elements of the redesign, they wouldn’t have been complete without the iconic “O” — its inner outline shaped to replicate Hayward Field, Oregon’s track and field stadium, and the outer one mimicking the outline of Autzen Stadium.

The creator of that “O” logo remains in dispute — Van Horne credits Hatfield with the idea, while Bakas says it was his own — but there is no debate about its impact. When the Ducks walked out onto the field to open the 1999 season sporting new colors, with the brand-new “O” on their green ChromaFlair helmets, the paradigm of uniforms shifted.

“The players loved it,” Bakas said. “They were coming from yellow and green with a duck on loose-fitting jerseys. What we gave them was super futuristic, and they absolutely ate it up.”


FARR’S OFFICE PHONE had been ringing. Oregon had just lost 42-20 to Ohio State in the 2014 national championship game while wearing a uniform combination that had not yet been featured that season: white jersey, black numbers and lettering, gray pants and a white helmet with silver wings.

“It looked great, but we didn’t win the game,” Farr said. “I had about 15 voicemails on my line the next morning, the next couple of days, of people blaming me, ‘We should have worn green! Why didn’t we wear green?’ And in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘We could have worn any color. I don’t know if we were going to tackle Ezekiel Elliot any better.'”

While it was coach Mike Bellotti who welcomed the original redesign, it was not until the arrival of Chip Kelly in the late 2000s and through 2012 that Oregon’s sartorial flair truly matched its fast and furious style of play. More uniform combos and a 46-7 record under Kelly supercharged a frenzy, not just around the team’s on-field success, but also around its next iterations of uniforms.

“Winning on a national stage helped so much,” Van Horne said. “That’s when we really dialed up the notion of looking different every game and different combinations and working with the athletes on scripting [uniforms] and even scripting the fans.” It all led to the notion of a uniform release as an event that both Oregon fans and even college football enthusiasts speculated about. The result was an insatiable desire for a wow factor to go with every drop.

“Fans’ expectations are so high for something new and cool, like you’re going to have some groundbreaking uniform that’s never been done before every single game,” Farr said. “But that’s not reality. I would say the last probably six or seven years is really where I got the sense of there’s some weeks where some fans are disappointed because they’re expecting us to have a helmet or a jersey with LED lights in it, and we didn’t do that.”

Farr has found that sometimes, more is less, and most Ducks fans will notice small splashes just as much as they will fixate on what they think of a certain jersey-pant combination.

Sometimes, the splash can be a custom cleat, like the Ducks did last season for the Rose Bowl, or what they’re doing against Penn State this week with exclusive glow-in-the-dark cleats, gloves and accessories. Often, Farr looks to the helmet — the only piece of the outfit he can customize on a weekly basis — as a way to add something new, even if it means an inordinate amount of work for his staff of one assistant and roughly 16 students.

When Oregon faced Wisconsin in the 2020 Rose Bowl and Farr had to reuse a uniform combination, he opted to tweak the chrome helmets with green tonal wings that he painted on to match the face mask. As the famous San Gabriel mountain sunset struck its pose during the game, the helmets reflected it perfectly.

“It ended up being one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Farr said. “Then we won the game. So, it’s iconic right around here. But if we would’ve lost the game, people would be like, ‘Ah, we didn’t have a new uniform.'”

Farr is now used to that pressure, in large part because he knows it’s not his vision that ultimately matters. In fact, Farr has, in the past, been overruled on a design he didn’t love only to see it shine.

“We wore one at Washington, I want to say four or five years ago, where it was a yellow helmet, yellow gloves and yellow cleats, but it was all white,” Farr said. And I was like, ‘This is looking stupid, and this is going to look terrible.’ We got on the field and people thought it looked great. So they like to give me a hard time about that.”

In the end, the final fit comes down to those who actually wear the jerseys.


TEZ JOHNSON WAS playing the part of lobbyist to no avail. The Oregon wide receiver, four of his teammates and Farr all gathered early last year to make the all-important decision: What were the Ducks going to wear for 2024, and when?

Farr had already received samples of every one of the five base uniforms that made up the “Generation O” class of kits from Van Horne Brands — helmets, jerseys, base layers, socks, cleats and gloves — and had them ready for players to see.

With five to pick from, players have to get creative. Farr does, too. When EA Sports’ college football game made its return last year, Farr was able to get EA to preload all of Oregon’s uniform combinations from its latest set onto the game so current players could try different blends they might be able to replicate in real life.

Johnson was adamant: Oregon should wear an all-black combination against Washington in the season finale. His teammates disagreed. The black getup was their best look of the year, and it should be worn earlier, specifically against Ohio State.

“It was very hotly debated for way too long,” Farr said. “The rest of the guys kind of overrode his vote. He was upset about it — I was like, ‘That’s all part of why you’re on the committee, but you’re only 20% of the vote, man.’ I totally leave it up to them.”

Farr has conducted this meeting for several years now, as a way to democratize the process. Every year, Farr selects a group of players, typically upperclassmen who have shown interest, to form a committee made up of an odd number so there’s never a tie. Over the course of two to three hours, players debate their choices, weighing things like opponent, where the game falls in their schedule and even weather.

“It’s got to be guys that are opinionated and not afraid to voice their opinions, because that’s what you want, you want a healthy dialogue,” Farr said. “For the players that are part of it, it’s kind of a badge of honor.”

Once players have finalized their choices with Farr’s assistance, he will lay out the scripting in a look book and show head coach Dan Lanning before the spring game for approval. Finalizing the looks well in advance of the season helps Farr organize the high volume of inventory he has to line up. Going off-script is rare, but not impossible. Two years ago, with undefeated Colorado visiting for a highly anticipated matchup, the Ducks changed to a different uniform combination.

Now, with the postseason potentially adding four extra games on top of the conference championship, Farr & Co. have to think beyond the regular season and a single bowl appearance. In the first season of the 12-team College Football Playoff last year, once Oregon knew whether it would be the away or home team, Farr texted committee members to get them thinking about their options for a quarterfinal look so Farr could get a combination set and organize the inventory in time

When you have one set of uniforms for three seasons of games, a repeat, especially in the playoffs, is almost inevitable. Even if players love a particular combination and want to run it back, Farr will always try to find a way to add a special twist.

“My whole argument is let’s not be different, just to be different,” Farr said. “We don’t have 12 helmets, 12 jerseys or 12 pairs of pants. It’s the different combinations and tweaks you can make that keep the looks unique.”


THE DUCKS MAY not have a different uniform for every game, but the fact that it feels like they do, or that it feels like they could if they wanted to, is a unique feature of Nike’s influence.

According to Farr, while Nike sponsors many programs across the country, it tiers schools, and that determines access to perks such as special releases and custom apparel, with Tier 1 being the highest — that is, unless you’re Oregon.

“[Nike] always told us,” Farr said, “we were Tier 0.”

“When I got to Oregon, I thought the practice jersey was the game jersey,” said wide receiver Evan Stewart, who transferred from Texas A&M. “It’s just different here. You look good, feel good, you play good.”

While players get to test upcoming fabrics and jersey materials that may not come out until 2028 (Oregon has been in the current Nike Fuse chassis that just came to the NFL since 2019), Nike gets to use Oregon athletes as wear test subjects (often it’s the uniform selection committee who gets first dibs) who provide feedback on the products. And while the Van Hornes and Nike are technically behind the designs, part of their process is getting input from players.

“Sometimes we don’t talk to players about what you want to look like,” Quinn Van Horne said. “It’s, ‘Hey if Oregon was a car, what kind of car would it be? What’s your favorite superhero movie? What kind of music are you listening to? When you walk out on the field, what do you see and what do you want to picture? What do you want to feel like?'”

It’s this system that will constantly evolve as players with different perspectives cycle in and out of the program that Todd Van Horne believes will keep Oregon’s well of uniform ideas stocked for years to come.

Perhaps nothing embodies that mindset more than the fact that Oregon commits to having at least one entirely new, never-before-seen uniform design each season.

Dubbed the “energy moment,” this sixth uniform combination has, over the years, run the gamut and largely been led by players. From a bright pink helmet with black jerseys in 2013, to a pan-Polynesian heritage-themed “Ohana” uniform in 2020, to a “Stomp Out Cancer” jersey in 2017 designed by cancer survivors as well as working on a “Heroes” bright yellow fit with Lanning’s wife, Sauphia (who is eight years cancer-free after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma),last season, the energy moment jersey is where Oregon and Nike often flex their muscles. A Stormtrooper look? Yes. A Lewis-and-Clark-inspired combo? Why not?

“While we want to do some throwbacks and some throwbacks need to be done, it’s like, what’s the next thing?” Farr said. “How are we going to evolve?”

There’s another committee that Farr oversees of younger Oregon players who are part of the idea process for what the energy moment jersey will be in 2026 and 2027. This year’s edition had to be approved by Nike 18 months before it saw the field against Oregon State; it featured a charcoal black and gold look with white helmets dubbed “Shoe Duck” that honors Knight.

“We talk so much about when Oregon comes out with a really big uniform, we’re extra stressed,” Quinn Van Horne said. “We really want to make sure they win, because we know what a win does to cement a uniform and its foundation.”

For Farr, the Van Hornes and Bakas, being part of establishing or furthering Oregon’s aesthetic identity is important and an inextricable part of Nike’s history over the past 25 years. But the goal, from the beginning, has always gone beyond that.

“We intentionally said it, we’re doing all this to win a national title and the uniform [redesign] was part of that too,” Bakas said. “That’s the Nike mentality — you want to be the best. The goal was to win a national championship, and the wheels were set in motion back then. The intent was there, but I didn’t think it would take 30 years or 25 years to get to this point. I thought we would’ve won one by now.”


THE BUILDING THAT houses them is named after him, but inside the hallway of hanging jerseys, you won’t find any sporting Mariota’s name.

Players who finish their senior season at the school are given a framed jersey before their last home game. Because the jerseys are technically state property, should a player want any of his other Oregon jerseys back, the price is $50 — plus shipping and handling.

Mariota bought all of his once he made it to the NFL. Not everyone else has, though. It’s why even though that closet holds close to 1,000 jerseys, there are still 600 to 800 more sitting in storage on the floor below.

“There’s guys that have left after their five years, and maybe your freshman year was the full reset, and then three years in you got another full reset,” Farr said. “So we’ve had guys that have, at the end of their career, had 40 or 50 jerseys.”

After years of simply taking old jerseys and selling them at a school surplus sale, Farr decided on a different approach. When the performance center was built in 2016, he took the jerseys from storage in rail cars to this room, where he organized them in alphabetical order. You never know who is going to swing through Eugene one of these days wanting to reunite with their polyester past.

“For every Marcus, there’s 119 other guys on that team that maybe weren’t the star player, or maybe when they graduated they couldn’t afford to buy all their jerseys,” Farr said. “So maybe they forgot about it or whatever the situation is, and they’ll come back and they’ll just ask me, and I get to tell them ‘Yeah, here they are.'”

Farr got to do just that as recently as the game against the Cowboys this season.

Cornerback Jaylin Davies was a freshman at Oregon in 2021 before transferring to UCLA for three seasons, eventually landing with Oklahoma State. Davies and Farr greeted each other after the game on the field. Though Davies had only recorded a few snaps as a freshman, he wanted his piece of Oregon history.

“You still have my jersey?” Davies asked Farr.

“I do,” Farr told him. “Call me after the season is over.”

Farr was happy to oblige. After all, that’s one more jersey he can take off a hanger and send on its way, just in time for another to take its place.

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West Virginia, Boise State lead best uniforms from college football Week 5

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West Virginia, Boise State lead best uniforms from college football Week 5

Sometimes, to go forward, you have to go back.

After a Week 4 loss on the road against the Kansas Jayhawks, the West Virginia Mountaineers are looking to notch their first Big 12 win of the season against the Utah Utes.

And West Virginia has an ace in the hole for that matchup with the Utes: new throwback uniforms.

Unveiled in May, the vintage look’s inspiration dates back to 1965. Its distinguishing features include a twist on the school’s usual color palette — a muted “old gold” hue replaces the Mountaineers’ traditional yellow, while light blue makes an appearance on the uniform’s helmets.

The light blue color fills in an outline of the state of West Virginia, with “WVU” superimposed on the state’s outline in an old-school, bolded font. The old gold elements are paired with a simple, navy blue base jersey.

The Mountaineers aren’t the only school bringing the heat with uniforms this weekend. Here are the best threads from around the college football world in Week 5.

The Boise State Broncos are donning lids touched up with unparalleled detail — an unsurprising characteristic, given the helmets were hand-painted.

Named “The Front Porch of Idaho helmet,” the Broncos’ headgear for the weekend pays homage to the school’s location in the capital of Idaho. One side of the lid features a bronco charging forward, while the other shows the Idaho state capitol building. Albertsons Stadium and its famous blue field make an appearance on the back, orange end zone included.


It’s a given that the Oregon Ducks will bring out a memorable uniform combination for any big game, but its Week 5 threads for its game against the Penn State Nittany Lions are notable for a particularly unique reason: a logo.

Playing in Penn State’s iconic annual White Out game atmosphere, the Ducks seem to be leaning into the intense nature of the road environment. In addition to a white jersey, Oregon’s threads for Saturday night will also include an alternate motif of a seemingly mummified duck, making an appearance on gloves and other accessories.


Blue is the color of the week for the Old Dominion Monarchs, whose uniforms for Week 5 will feature contrasting shades.

The helmets and pants will be a lighter powder blue, while the jerseys contain a navy base. The light blue shade will also serve as the outline for the numbers and trimming on the jerseys.


With one major upset this season already under its belt, the Mississippi State Bulldogs are looking to add another to the ledger this Saturday against the Tennessee Volunteers.

The color of the Bulldogs’ uniforms will match the home crowd, which has been asked to make Week 5 a whiteout in Starkville. Mississippi State will be going with an icy white look itself, highlighted by a helmet that features a maroon, retro-style interlocking “MSU” logo on a white base.


An appropriately patriotic element will spice up the East Carolina Pirates‘ look for its Thursday clash with the Army Black Knights, with the school donning military appreciation uniforms for the service academy matchup.

While the Pirates’ purple jerseys and white pants are standard fare, the helmets this week are distinctive. East Carolina will add a splash of red, white and blue to the lids, with an American flag superimposed on the Pirates’ usual skull and crossbones motif.

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MLB playoff tracker: Dodgers, Mariners clinch divisions — what else is at stake?

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MLB playoff tracker: Dodgers, Mariners clinch divisions -- what else is at stake?

The final weekend of the MLB season is here — and there’s still plenty to play for!

The Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs have both clinched postseason berths, with the Brewers also taking home the NL Central title. The Philadelphia Phillies have locked up the NL East title, and the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched their fifth straight NL West title on Thursday. The New York Mets, clinging onto the final wild-card-spot, won their series against the Cubs this week and control their own destiny going into the final weekend, but the door is still open for the Cincinnati Reds — who won on Thursday afternoon — and Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL wild-card race.

In the AL, the Toronto Blue Jays became the first AL team to secure a playoff spot and the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners joined them days later. In the biggest twists of the 2025 season, the Cleveland Guardians have rocked the American League playoff picture with a September surge, emerging as a serious contender in both the AL Central and wild-card race: After winning their series against the Tigers this week, the Guardians are now tied with Detroit for the the AL Central lead.

Beyond division races, there are many storylines to watch as the regular season comes to an end and playoffs begin: Where do current playoff matchups stand? What games should you be paying attention to each day leading up to October? Who will be the next team to clinch a postseason berth? And what does the playoff schedule look like?

We have everything you need to know as the regular season hits the homestretch.

Key links: Full MLB standings | Wild-card standings


Who’s in?

Milwaukee Brewers

The Brewers clinched the season’s first playoff spot for a second consecutive year on Sept. 13 and followed up by securing their third straight NL Central title. They earned a bye in the first round and are playing for the NL’s overall No. 1 seed.

Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies clinched a spot in the postseason on Sept. 14. With a win the following night, Philadelphia clinched the NL East title for the second straight year. On Wednesday, the Phils beat the Marlins to clinch a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the NLDS.

Chicago Cubs

The Cubs clinched their spot in the postseason on Sept. 17 and will be making their first playoff appearance in a full-length season since 2018. They will face the Padres in the wild-card series.

Los Angeles Dodgers

With a win Thursday over the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers clinched the NL West title for the 12th time in the past 13 years. They will be the No. 3 seed in the NL and host the No. 6 seed in the wild-card series.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays became the first AL team to secure a postseason berth with a with over the Royals on Sunday. They are currently tied with the Yankees for first place in the AL East — the division winner will earn a bye.

San Diego Padres

The Padres clinched their fourth postseason trip in six years with a walk-off win over the Brewers on Monday. They will face the Cubs in the wild-card series.

New York Yankees

The Yankees became the second AL team to clinch a playoff spot with a walk-off win over the White Sox on Tuesday. They are currently tied with the Blue Jays for first place in the AL East — the division winner will earn a bye.

Seattle Mariners

The Mariners clinched their first postseason appearance since 2022 on Tuesday and, with a 9-2 win on Wednesday, won their first AL West crown since 2001. They earned a bye in the first round.


Who can clinch a playoff spot next?

Upcoming clinch possibilities:

  • The Red Sox can clinch a postseason berth Friday with a win OR an Astros loss

  • The Guardians can clinch a postseason berth Friday with a win OR an Astros loss

  • The Tigers can clinch a postseason berth as early as Friday with any combination of three Detroit wins and Astros losses


What are this October’s MLB playoff matchups as it stands now?

American League

Wild-card round: (6) Tigers at (3) Guardians, (5) Red Sox at (4) Yankees

ALDS: Tigers/Guardians vs. (2) Mariners, Red Sox/Yankees vs. (1) Blue Jays

National League

Wild-card round: (6) Mets at (3) Dodgers, (5) Padres at (4) Cubs

NLDS: Mets/Dodgers vs. (2) Phillies, Padres/Cubs vs. (1) Brewers


Tiebreaker scenarios

AL East teams

Toronto Blue Jays

Win tiebreaker: Mariners, Red Sox, Yankees
Lose tiebreaker: Guardians

New York Yankees

Win tiebreaker: Mariners
Lose tiebreaker: Blue Jays, Guardians, Red Sox

Boston Red Sox

Win tiebreaker: Astros, Guardians, Yankees
Lose tiebreaker: Blue Jays, Mariners
(Red Sox still have 3 games left vs. Tigers)

AL Central teams

Cleveland Guardians

Win tiebreaker: Astros, Tigers, Yankees, Blue Jays
Lose tiebreaker: Mariners, Red Sox

Detroit Tigers

Win tiebreaker: Astros
Lose tiebreaker: Guardians, Mariners
(Detroit still has 3 games left vs. Red Sox)

AL West teams

Seattle Mariners

Win tiebreaker: Tigers, Guardians, Red Sox
Lose tiebreaker: Blue Jays, Yankees

Houston Astros

Win tiebreaker: N/A
Lose tiebreaker: Guardians, Red Sox, Tigers

NL East teams

Philadelphia Phillies

Win tiebreaker: Dodgers
Lose tiebreaker: Brewers

New York Mets

Win tiebreaker: N/A
Lose tiebreaker: D-backs, Reds
(Mets would lose tiebreaker in 3-way tie with Reds and D-backs)

NL Central teams

Milwaukee Brewers

Win tiebreaker: Phillies
Lose tiebreaker: N/A

Chicago Cubs

Win tiebreaker: Dodgers
Lose tiebreaker: N/A
(Padres and Cubs tied season series, division record tiebreaker TBD)

Cincinnati Reds

Win tiebreaker: D-backs, Mets
Lose tiebreaker: N/A
(The Reds would win tiebreaker in 3-way tie with D-backs and Mets)

NL West teams

Los Angeles Dodgers

Win tiebreaker: Padres
Lose tiebreaker: Brewers, Cubs, Phillies

San Diego Padres

Win tiebreaker: N/A
Lose tiebreaker: Dodgers
(Padres and Cubs tied season series, division record tiebreaker TBD)

Arizona Diamondbacks

Win tiebreaker: Mets
Lose tiebreaker: Reds
(D-backs would lose tiebreaker in 3-way tie with Reds and Mets)


Breaking down the AL race

The Blue Jays are trying to hold for the AL’s No. 1 seed and division title. While Toronto sits atop the AL East, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are duking it out for wild-card seeding. And the Seattle Mariners separated themselves from the Houston Astros in a two-team AL West race to win their first division crown since 2001. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Guardians are going toe-to-toe with the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central while also playing themselves into a tight race for the final wild-card spot.

And what about when these teams get to the postseason? Here’s what their chances are for every round:


Breaking down the NL race

The Brewers were the first MLB team to seal its spot in October, and the Phillies — who then sealed an NL East title — clinched next. A group of contenders have separated themselves atop the NL standings with the New York Mets, Arizona Diamondbacks and Cincinnati Reds battling for the final playoff spot, and there is intrigue in the NL West as the Dodgers attempt to fend off the Padres for the division crown.

And what about when these teams get to the postseason? Here’s what their chances are for every round:


Game of the day

Looking for something to watch today? Here’s the baseball game with the biggest playoff implications:


Playoff schedule

Wild-card series
Best of three, all games at better seed’s stadium

Game 1: Tuesday, Sept. 30
Game 2: Wednesday, Oct. 1
Game 3: Thursday, Oct. 2*

Division series
Best of five

ALDS
Game 1: Saturday, Oct. 4
Game 2: Sunday, Oct. 5
Game 3: Tuesday, Oct. 7
Game 4: Wednesday, Oct. 8*
Game 5: Friday, Oct. 10*

NLDS
Game 1: Saturday, Oct. 4
Game 2: Monday, Oct. 6
Game 3: Wednesday, Oct. 8
Game 4: Thursday, Oct. 9*
Game 5: Saturday, Oct. 11*

League championship series
Best of seven

ALCS
Game 1: Sunday, Oct. 12
Game 2: Monday, Oct. 13
Game 3: Wednesday, Oct. 15
Game 4: Thursday, Oct. 16
Game 5: Friday, Oct. 17*
Game 6: Sunday, Oct. 19*
Game 7: Monday, Oct. 20*

NLCS
Game 1: Monday, Oct. 13
Game 2: Tuesday, Oct. 14
Game 3: Thursday, Oct. 16
Game 4: Friday, Oct. 17
Game 5: Saturday, Oct. 18*
Game 6: Monday, Oct. 20*
Game 7: Tuesday, Oct. 21*

World Series
Best of seven

Game 1: Friday, Oct. 24
Game 2: Saturday, Oct. 25
Game 3: Monday, Oct. 27
Game 4: Tuesday, Oct. 28
Game 5: Wednesday, Oct. 29*
Game 6: Friday, Oct. 31*
Game 7: Saturday, Nov. 1*

* If necessary

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