In my many years doing the Pac-12 tracker and Duck tracker, I deal with school colors each week. One of the reasons I love uniforms and college football is the amount of identity we all feel for "our team" and its iconography which is most personified by color!
The Pac-12—like all conferences—has a wide palette of colors represented, but leans heavily on the three primary colors of yellow, red, and blue.
Most of the Pac-12 use two official colors. Stanford is the only school to only use one color (Cardinal Red) plus white, while Utah, to some extent, leans heavily on just its red and less black. Colorado uses three colors in black, gold and silver
Note: All these color swatches come directly from each university's branding or communications website, and represent the "official" academic color scheme for each school and often not the final uniform colors.
Yellow/Gold (7 teams)
This category is a bit hard to pin down since some university's use gold/yellow interchangably.
- Oregon uses a very distinct bright yellow, and never gold. (color is taken from state flower)
- UCLA wears shiny gold, but the official school color is bright yellow that is called "gold" (it is a state color so makes sense)
- USC wears yellow
- ASU wears a dark yellow, but calls it "gold" (Sun Devils should be golden yellow)
- Cal wears a dark yellow, but calls it "gold" (They are the Golden Bears!)
- Colorado use gold in all places (It is a mineral rich state)
- Washington use gold in all places. (They say it represents excellence, but not this season!)
Red (6 teams)
Most of the Pac schools that use red are all VERY similar shades!
- Utah uses the brightest pure red Pantone 187
- ASU uses "Maroon" which is the darkest of the "reds" in the Pac
- WSU, USC and Stanford officially use the EXACT same Pantone 201 red, but Stanford's shows darker in RGB. Arizona uses a VERY close Pantone 200 red
Blue (3 teams)
Not much to say here. Three different shades of blue.
- UCLA has the lightest, sky blue (but historically uses a powder blue)
- Cal is in the middle with a deep blue
- Arizona uses an almost-navy blue
Black/Gray (5ish teams)
While pundits often bemoan the use of black and gray by schools that don't have it as an official color, the Pac actually has a third of its members who can truthfully use it.
- Oregon State, Colorado and Utah use black as a primary color.
- WSU uses dark gray as a primary color, and the Cougars use several shades of gray in uniforms.
- Colorado also uses silver and dark gray as a primary colors.
- Stanford and Utah list gray as one of their official colors but rarely use it in football.
Secondary Colors
These colors singularly personify their Northwest schools:
- Purple: Washington (A pretty standard purple that can lean a bit too blue sometimes)
- Orange: Oregon State (this shade has gotten darker and redder over the years)
- Green: Oregon (In football, the Ducks tend to use brighter apple green and darker "nightmare" green, but their academic green is pretty normal)
