Monday Morning Uni Watch

Oh man, is there anything better than a snow game? The shoveled yard lines, the slipping and sliding, the obligatory video clip of the Snow Plow Game. Yesterday’s Bears/Pats game had all that and more (lots of photos here), including Brian Urlacher’s broken helmet decal and the odd sight of CBS’s first down line appearing over the players instead of under them. Maybe the snow messed up the graphics somehow..?

In other NFL observations from yesterday:

• When’s the last time you saw a team-branded elbow pad? Looks like it might be a cover-up patch, which makes me wonder if it’s obscuring a maker’s mark from a non-licensed manufacturer.

• A couple of Lions fans made a bit of a statement at Ford Field.

• In case you were wondering, Troy Polamalu still has that little red cross above his nameplate. (For the uninitiated, he’s been wearing the cross for several years, but it rarely shows because of his hair. The league’s position is that it’s kosher because it’s almost never visible.)

• What do you get when the Chargers and Chiefs play each other? A battle of the uni-numbered chinstraps.

• The Rams have such a low profile now, I’d almost forgotten how much I like this look. One of the classiest, most underrated combos in the league.

• In the unlikely event that you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the amazing video clip of the Metrodome roof collapsing.

• Turning to Saturday’s college action, the Midshipmen broke out their “dress” uniforms for the Army/Navy game.

• Latest school to go BFBS: Texas Southern, in the SWAC (D-1AA) conference championship game

(My thanks to all contributors, including Matt Shepardson, Jeff La Haie, Austin Prather, Prentice James, and Scott Peterson.)

And so it has come to this: As most of you have probably heard by now, Nike will be unveiling special bowl game uniforms costumes tomorrow for Oregon, TCU, Boise State, and Florida. I’ll be covering this with two pieces over on ESPN — a quick Page 2 Blog item very soon after the unveiling on Tuesday, and then a column-length assessment on Wednesday.

While the whole notion of special bowl uniforms is obviously ridiculous, I’m holding out hope that they’ll come up with something nice for Oregon. I’ve always liked the current winged-shoulder set, and Oregon’s design trend these days seems to be more toward “good” than “stupid” (yes, I include the new basketball floor design in that assessment). Am I just being naive? We’ll find out soon.

Show-and-tell reminder: Remember, I’ll be hosting Open Mic Show-and-Tell at the City Reliquary this Thursday. Bring an item to talk about for three minutes, or just be part of the audience. Doors at 7pm, showing/telling commences at 8pm. $5 suggested donation, plenty of beer on hand, best fried chicken in the city available next door at the Commodore. See you there.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Here’s a big photo gallery from the Big Chill at the Big House. Damn, that looks like it was fun. ”¦ We all know that Oregon helmets have that raised rubberized “O” on the nose bumpers. Interestingly, you can see the Riddell logo peeking through on this one (good spot by Dan Herr). ”¦ Here’s a head-scratcher: Why would anyone make (and why would MLB license) a Mets Mr. Potato Head with a Yankees chest logo? Christian Eidt‘s son spotted the glitch right away when he received the toy as a birthday gift. ”¦ Did you know the Winter Meetings had their own logo? I didn’t, until Benn Wineka sent me that link. ”¦ David Arnott was looking through some old Sporting News clips and spotted a 1986 photo of a college hoops player with ANOB — that’s abbreviated name on back. ”¦ Latest camo-based design: a helmet for the Army lacrosse team (with thanks to Connor Wilson). ”¦ Really interesting interview with the Fleer photographer who shot the Billy Ripken “Fuck Face” card (big thanks to Dan Cichalski). ”¦ Eric Davis reports that a Japanese company is taking broken bats from Japanese baseball games and turning them into chopsticks. ”¦ Here’s a nice little item about how various Penguins players chose their uniform numbers (with thanks to Dane Drutis). ”¦ After years of holding out without a jersey sponsor, Barcelona has finally sold out like everyone else. ”¦ The Florida Everblades — that’s a minor league hockey team in the ECHL — are making a serious “worst uni ever” bid with their holiday-themed jerseys (blame Rob Silcox). ”¦ New lacrosse gloves for Duke (with thanks to John Koziol). ”¦ Dig the sensational old Utah State helmet on the right side of this photo. According to the Helmet Project, it was used from 1964-67 (nice find by Jeff Flynn, Jr.). ”¦ Also from Jeff: We all know the Pirates wore pillbox caps back in the late ’70s. But I didn’t know they also used pillbox-ish visors as promotional giveaways. ”¦ I generally have very little patience for the whole black/badass thing, but I have to admit that this black Raiders helmet looks pretty cool. ”¦ Here’s a look at those Oregon basketball throwbacks from Friday night (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). ”¦ What’s black and white and red all over? That’s Eastern Washington’s red field (with thanks to Samm McAlear). ”¦ You know how the Cowboys put that Dymo label at the base of the white stripe on their helmet? North Dakota State uses that same area to print out the team name. Never seen that before until Evan Stewart pointed it out to me. ”¦ Mike Hersh has written a nice piece about old sports poster catalogs. ”¦ The Palmyra High School in New Jersey is one of the smallest schools in the state, so the football team only has about 30 players on the roster. Yet they still have nine mix-and-match uni combos (with thanks to assistant coach John J. Boris, Sr., who says he’s looking to add white and black helmets to the mix if he can find a sponsor). ”¦ A reader who prefers to remain anonymous has pointed out that the molded ridge on the Riddell Revolution Speed helmet has led to a variety of taping and decaling techniques for teams with helmet stripes, as equipment staffs try to get the stripes to go over the ridge without bubbling or loosening. Some teams simply break the stripe into separate pieces and leave the ridge blank. Others stick with one continuous stripe, but it often doesn’t adhere properly at the ridge. I’m told that LSU deals with this by cutting the stripe into two separate sections and aligning them right at the ridge, creating this illusion of a continuous stripe that stays put. And Virginia Tech has chosen to deal with the problem by truncating their stripes. … What do you use for hockey if you don’t have access to real ice? Synthetic ice.

Everybody in the pool: In case you missed it over the weekend, Phil and reader Tod Hess have put together a college football bowl pool. If you’re interested in joining, you can resgister here. Our Group ID# is 6828 and the Password is bfbs (all lowercase). If you want a review of the bowls and teams playing, go here and here.