Dude, You’re Not in the Pros Quite Yet

You know what’s kinda weird? A college team wearing an NFL captaincy patch. All of Tulsa’s captains were wearing them in yesterday’s game against East Carolina — pretty sure that’s an NCAA first. Looks like they didn’t color in any of the four stars, so why bother with the stars at all? Odd. I’ve been pleasantly surprised all along that these patches haven’t included the NFL logo, but I wonder if that will change now that a college team has poached them.

Other college football notes:

• From that same game, Tulsa had two No. 1s on the field for the game-ending Hail Mary play. You aren’t supposed to have two same-numbered players on the same side of the ball, but one of the Tulsa players, Trae Johnson, is normally a wide receiver, so I guess he was out there as part of the Hail Mary defense (not that it helped).

• Still more from that game: Tod Meisner notes that the message on Tulsa’s nose bumpers has changed from “TTH” (“Tougher than hell”) to “Heart.”

• Yet another note from that game: New striping for East Carolina’s white pants.

• My ESPN roundup noted the changes to Kansas’s helmet and jersey, but I didn’t know they’d also switched from black shoes to white.

• San Jose State has added NOBs and removed all the typography from its helmet design.

• I’d already reported on Syracuse’s new jersey design but didn’t realize they’d also changed from black shoes to white.

• Reader Warren Junium notes that the officials in the Purdue/Notre Dame game — who were from the Big Ten — were wearing Adidas-branded caps. Has that been going on for a while? (Warren also adds that the Notre Dame QBs wear red caps on the sideline.)

• Non-FBS change: Portland State’s new jersey has a subscript TNOB. Pretty sure I’ve never seen that format on a football team. (Well, there was that miserable Arizona design, but that’s different because the SNOB was part of a stripe.)

•  Non-FBS again: New design for Montana.

Enjoy your Laborious Day, and remember to avoid that Boise/Tech game at all costs.

Uni Watch News Ticker: New throwbacks on tap for the AHL’s Springfield Falcons (as submitted by Erik Gallant). ”¦ Interesting cross-sport memorial at UCLA, where the women’s volleyball team is wearing a John Wooden memorial mark, along with the new Pac-10 logo (with thanks to Erkki Corpuz). … New red line design for the Maple Leafs. ”¦ Reprinted from last night’s comments: Not exactly the best lettering job on Alejandro De Aza’s NOB. ”¦ Also from last night: Remember the UNLV player with the Nevada flag patch instead of an NOB? As I suspected, that’s an honor conferred by the coach. It’s not clear from the article if this honor will rotate each week, each season, or what. Update: It’s an annual award, so Ronnie Paulo will wear No. 36 and the flag patch all season long ”¦ Mizuno has been awarded the contract to make the Nippon Professional Baseball ball. “The new ball will be made in China, have 1 mm wider stitching and 0.2 mm shorter stitching,” says Jeremy Brahm, although I don’t fully understand what that means. Longer and shorter than what? ”¦ Great contribution from Mark Richter, who writes: “During a recent vacation to New Orleans, I took the family on a tour of Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World, where they make all of the floats for New Orleans Mardi Gras parades. At the time we were there, they were preparing for next week’s parade that coincides with the Saints’ season opener. The work on these pieces was outstanding.” ”¦ Steve Johnston was on the Notre Dame campus over the weekend and saw this evolution of the ND logo. ”¦ Now that’s a lot of cats. It’s from an article about some guy who bought a farm and turned into a feline sanctuary (thanks, Kirsten).