EUGENE, Ore. -- Typically, a team’s defensive coordinator and running backs coach don’t need to be in communication on the morning of a game.

But Oregon defensive coordinator Don Pellum admits there have been one or two instances on game days when he gets out of bed, grabs his phone and asks running backs coach Gary Campbell for his game plan.

Campbell might reply: Silk. Mahogany. Fedora.

Those aren’t play calls that Campbell will make later that day. Rather, they’re the components of his outfit -- pulled from one of 52 suits in his current “rotation” -- that he’ll be wearing that day. Because any well-dressed coach knows that it would be far too much of a faux pas to show up to a sporting event sporting too similar of a wardrobe.

Dapper doesn’t do the pair justice and swag doesn’t involve enough sophistication to be accurate. Unique, certainly, but that also kind of sells the Oregon assistants short.

One fact reigns true: There’s likely not a better-dressed duo anywhere across the country on Saturday mornings than Pellum and Campbell.

“I think most people are excited to see what the team is wearing on Saturdays,” Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said. “I’m always excited to see those guys.”

Campbell and Pellum find it strange that so many others seem so interested in their own sartorial choices. Because for them, getting put together -- and put together quite well -- is old hat.

Don Pellum, shown here before the Ducks played Florida State in the Rose Bowl, makes frequent trips to Los Angeles to update his wardrobe. Eric Evans Photography

While Campbell was growing up in Ennis, Texas, his mother, Pearl, was something of a town fashionista.

She started by making hats and covering shoes in material to match her dresses. Some of her friends caught on and she started doing the same for them. At one point, Pearl had Campbell’s father, Floyd, cut a picture window into the front of their house so she could display her hats for passersby.

Her taste in matching her dress fabric to her shoes and hats was not lost on Gary, who picked up the same taste in his own wardrobe.

“If I’ve got a purple suit I’m going to have some purple shoes and a purple hat and purple socks. Everything, everything is going to match,” Campbell said.

Pellum’s fashion tastes were also derived from his upbringing, but more from his father and uncles. He remembered them dressing up for every occasion from birthdays to weekly dinners to church. The wide pant leg, the bowler cap, the feather, it all came from them.

In high school, Pellum began refining his own vestiary preferences. He didn’t show up to school in three-piece suits, but he did like to be clean-cut. His mother taught him how to starch his pants and shirts, which he did every night before he went to bed.

He took his dress very seriously, and to this day -- roughly 35 years later -- he can recite perfectly what he wore to his senior prom.

“I wore a two-toned brown three-piece with light bottoms, a medium top,” Pellum begins. “The vest had lines that matched the pants and the jacket. It was a brownish color shirt and a tri-color brown tie with a pocket square. And I had on two-tone brown Stacy Adams shoes.”

Pellum's sense of fashion made him stand out as far back as his high school days. Courtesy of Don Pellum

But those memories hardly compare to the memories of their game-day outfits now.

Show either coach a photo of themselves on a game day without any outside indicators and the two are like children studying flashcards.

Chip’s last game. Rose Bowl. U of A when we didn’t do very well. That was in Los Angeles. That was in Colorado two years ago.

And so on and so forth they go, scoring 100 percent, perfect A's.

“They’re tied to an event,” Pellum said of the photos and suits.

And since each suit is tied to an event and memory, it’s no surprise that each coach takes great care in how and where he shops.

Both frequent Los Angeles during their holidays and can rattle off the names of high-end stores like they can rattle off names of recruits. They might go to Europe or New York if their schedules permit and rarely do they buy suits straight off the rack.

As always, Gary Campbell and Don Pellum's pre game swag is very clean. #UOvUW pic.twitter.com/nSwUvQRFmb — Justin Wise (@JustinFWise) October 18, 2014

On one trip to Los Angeles, Pellum took Helfrich to the Fashion District to try to expand his fashion interests by immersion. Helfrich, who has not taken to these Karate Kid-like lessons based off his 2015 pregame attire, was quite taken aback by this side of L.A. and how Pellum was received.

“It’s like you’re walking through with the mayor,” Helfrich said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, DP, come check this out, come check this out.’”

But it should come as no surprise.

Both Campbell and Pellum approach fashion as they do football, with intensity and a great focus on improving.

“I might see a color or a style and say, ‘Yeah, I like that but if the lapels were a little different or if it had different vents in it or if it had a pleat in the back,” Campbell said. “And then I start saying, ‘Yeah, that’s OK, but how do we improve on that? How do we make that nicer?”

How do we improve on that? How do we make our running backs more efficient? How do we make our defensive front seven stronger? How do we make that nicer?

For Campbell and Pellum, the conversations just blend together. And though their advice on football might last years (for so many of their players it lasts four to five), their advice on fashion is more concise: Wear what makes you feel good.

“You should wear what you feel comfortable in,” Pellum said. “Wherever that takes you, that’s where it takes you.”

It has taken Campell and Pellum all over the world -- from Pasadena to Eugene, from spring games to season openers.

And like their own players, when one leaves the team another steps in and is expected to make their own contributions. But instead of losing their suits to the NFL, they are donated to Goodwill, and instead of recruiting new players, they recruit new styles, new cuts and new fabrics.

Football and fashion, two topics that are both in-depth yet straightforward. But at the end of the day, they are simple for Campbell and Pellum: It’s what feels good.