Sunday Morning Uni Watch

By Phil Hecken

Ahhh…sweet revenge last night for Wisconsin, which avenged a week six loss to Nebraska, thoroughly taking the Huskers behind the woodshed by a score of 70 to 31. Yep. You may recall that Week 6 matchup — Nebraska wore red and Wisconsin wore white. The lads from Lincoln had a Big “N” on their chests, while the men from Madison sported a … wait for it … Big “W”. This game was, of course, for the B1G Championship, and the right to face Stanford in the Rose Bowl in January.

Many people, though I would not be one of them, thought the clownsuits sported by the two squads in that week six matchup, were a good thing, since Wisconsin and Nebraska sport similar uniforms. In fact, many people thought last night’s game looked a bit like an intrasquad scrimmage. But I thought it looked beautiful. Good thing Wisconsin’s next opponent will really shake things up, uniform-wise, for the Granddaddy.

I kid, of course, but Stanford earned its trip to the Rose by breaking out their BFBS suits to win the PAC12 Championship over UCLA on Friday night. Sad. Stanford has such a beautiful uniform, both away and home, their insistence on copping to the BFBS trend is depressing. Hopefully, they’ll dress properly in the Rose Bowl.

There weren’t all that many games this week, and I don’t want to steal any of Terry’s thunder. So, without further ado, here’s Terry Duroncelet with your Week 14…

. . .

Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet

Shhhhhh… hear that? That’s the sound of a rather uneventful week 14 of the 2012 NCAA football season. And understandably so, with this weekend focusing on conference championship games and such. Basically, I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel here, but a couple of things did stick out, such as:

• The Rutgers Scarlet Knights dressing as the Rutgers Ebony Knights on Thursday night. Fitting that their hopes for an outright Big East title faded to black as well, as opponent Louisville would be the victors that game.

• The Stanford Cardinal dressed up as the Stanford Black on Friday night. A few things about this BFBS uniform that are different from last year include 1) no pants stripes, to keep with the theme of this year’s pants. 2) they brought back the black helmets from last year’s Nike Pro Combat uniforms. Even though they still looked like shit, this year’s Stanford Black costume is significantly better than the previous incarnations. Some of the Stanford Players didn’t have player names (#94 and #96), and what’s all of that white stuff on the back of #42’s helmet? Is that from last year? Is that from a rough drill in practice? Paint fight? If anyone knows, how did the back of the helmet end up like that? Also, is anyone works with matte helmets as an equipment manager/volunteer/staff/etc., how difficult is it to get those helmets cleaned up and un-scuffed compared to gloss-finish helmets?

• Also from Friday, I noticed that when you earn enough merit decals on a Kent State helmet, you can pull a Maryland and make it look like your helmet is two different colors! In fact, in some shots and angles, it looks like the helmet should be gold rather than navy! And for some strange reason, I like this.

• On Saturday, West Virginia wore navy/gold/navy against Kansas.

• Baylor, I am disappoint (also note how #26 doesn’t have a nameplate).

• Well, shit.

Guess I’ll crawl back into my hole and wait for the bowl games to come on. Catch you guys later.

. . .

Thanks TJ! With a smaller slate of games, only a few teams misbehaved by wearing their lamest alts, but most teams stuck with the script — like Kansas State and Texas (of course, when you have no clownsuit alternates, you always wear your finest). The same could also be said for Alabama and Georgia, who looked great. Even FSU/GT looked good (despite GT’s rather sad uniforms).

TJ’s got next weekend off, since the only Uni Watching we’ll be doing is the Army/Navy game, but he’ll be back once we enter bowl season. So — THANKS so much for a fantastic regular season of SMUW, Terry, and we’ll catch you once the Bowls get underway!

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Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

Just a few this weekend, but we have a really *special* set. You guys will recall last weekend I posted this request, from John Trigg (coming to us from an undisclosed location), where I mentioned “he’s hoping the colorizers will take a crack at (and it’s of his dad, so maybe we can get a couple).” Here’s his request:

Hi Phil:

Hello from Southwest Asia (sorry I can’t be more specific)! I work over here as a contractor with US Forces. Anyway…I’m a long-time UW reader and have a photo I’d like to submit for possible colorization. The main thing that got me thinking about this was your Father’s Day post…I lost my dad a couple of years ago and while it does get easier, every now and then…I still find myself thinking “I should ask Dad about this…”.

Anyway, the photo is of my father John W. Trigg…a 149 lb All-State guard for the 1949 Louisiana State Champion Byrd High School Yellowjackets. He always loved this photo…and told me that it was quite painful (apparently, he had to leap several times). Uniform colors were purple and gold (looks like metallic gold…probably more of the “old gold” variety) and the houses in the background are likely red brick.

Hopefully Paul won’t mind that the uniform colors are purple and gold? I’d love to see this done in color.

Thanks,

John Trigg ( جون تريج)
Southwest Asia

. . .

Well, the Uni Watch faithful never fail to amaze. To wit — and we begin with colorizer extraordinaire Gary Chanko:

Phil:

So here it is, from this past Sunday’s Uni-Watch, John W. Trigg colorized.

The photo original was a challenge for colorization because of the low resolution and high contrast image. Sorry John but this is about the best I can do with the original.

However I was able to up size (add more pixels) the image and do a bit of clean up for the few dust spots. The finished product should make a decent 8″x10″ (or A4 in Asia) and perhaps larger.

Enjoy,

Gary

Awesome stuff — Gary actually requested I forward that directly to John, which I did, which prompted this wonderful reply from John:

Phil & Gary:

Thank you so much for making this happen. I think the colors are spot-on…even the brick of the houses looks correct and I love the vague cirrus cloud detail in the sky. Just amazing work.

Given the time period, I’ve never really seen a color photo of my Dad at this age. As this was one of his favorite photos, it makes the job doubly appreciated. I am thinking of a framed print on my Christmas list! FYI, I’ve also forwarded the photo to my mother and sister. While I will be waiting to hear what they think, I can’t believe they’d be anything but pleased.

Uni-Watch is so much more than a blog site…it is a living, breathing community. Thanks again.

John Trigg ( جون تريج)
Southwest Asia

. . .

But…UWers coming to the colorization-request rescue weren’t done. Not by a long shot. I received this from newcomer Jim Polacek:

Hello Phil,

I always love the “Colorize This” section. I’ve tinkered around with colorization on and off the last few months. I decided to make John Trigg’s request my first submission.

Jim Polacek

. . .

But that wasn’t all I received! I also got the following from last weekend’s Stirrup Nation winner Pete Woychick:

Hi Phil””

This is for the reader requesting colorization last Sunday.

Thanks!

””Pete

. . .

And, of course, John Turney, our most prodigious colorizer, had two new ones:

Phil

Lions and Eagles 1957.

Colorization with Alien Skin Kodachrome filter. Scanned from Magazine, not great resolution. Just guess as to the colors in the signage on outfield wall. Chose colors that would augment photo.

John

. . .

Phil

1936 Bears and Lions with Dutch Clark and Bill Hewitt featured.

Colorized . . . not best scan, some “screen distortion” using a 1936 Kodachrome filter.

John

. . .

And finally, we have another reader request for colorization. Unfortunately, it’s not the largest of resolutions. It comes from John David Crow:

Gentlemen

I love your colorization features. And, I can’t find a decent pic of John David Crow on the ‘net.

Could you have this be a colorization feature?

It’s 1956 and vs. ‘Bama I think.

JDC

OK, readers/colorizers — great job today, and of course, fantastic efforts by John & Gary (and Jim & Pete too). Back with more next time!

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“Benchies” first appeared at U-W in 2008, and has been a Saturday & Sunday feature here for the past two years.

. . . . .

In his defense, he definitely WAS feeling a sense of empowerment…

Click to enlarge

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Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

~~~

First up is Steve Wojtowicz, who is clearly missing puck…

Phil

My utter disgust and depression over the lockout got me to think of how, once a deal is signed, they will need to start the goodwill tour to regain some fans. Since I am a New Jersey Devils fan, I wanted to focus on there and I thought they might do this is by tweaking their uniforms a little bit. They have not had a uniform overhaul since the 1992-1993 season, so it is a possibility. This got me to thinking of possible changes, and it lead me to the idea that a wise choice may be to combined the new color combination with the old uniform style.

I have put together an example (with a shameless plug for a blog I am trying to get off the ground) to see what you and the other uniwatchers might think about it (if you don’t want to help me promote I completely understand and I can re-submit the concept without the website info).

On a side note, while doing this mock-up I noticed the home and red (white and red respectively) have different striping styles on them on both the sleeves and around the shoulder area. I am not sure if any other team in the NHL has ever had different jersey styles, as it were, for their primary home and road jersey’s. Is there anyone who might have some info on that? Just curious.

Keep up the great work.

Sincerely,
Steven Wojtowicz
Kendall park, NJ

. . .

Next up is Brian Arnold who has a tweak for the Cavs:

Phil,

I’m a CAVS fan, and I think they have one of the more interesting uni-histories in the league. They have changed so many times through the years. I like their new uniforms. Sure they are not flashy, but I love the simplicity of the wine and gold. They recently added a gold alternate “CAVS” jersey. I guess when I think of the “CAVS”, I think of the old logo from the 80’s. I took that logo and exchanged it with the block letters of the new jersey. I like the nod to the teams history. I’m attaching a before and after picture from the recent media day. I am also attaching a photo from a few years back when the team did something similar with a wine jersey. I just saved these photos from a google search, so I hope it wouldn’t violate any copyrights to show them on your blog. Great job by the way…I love the concepts.

Thanks,
Brian Arnold

. . .

And our last concepter today is Derek Robinson with a concept for Boston College:

Hey Phil,

Just discovered your site. Really cool. I noticed you also seem to have quite the reputation, as it seems you were one of the first ones to post the BC and Hawaii Wounded Warrior uniforms. I thought I would send you my design for a uniform that I really, really think Boston College should adopt as an annual tribute.

You may have heard the story of Welles Crowther, “The Man in the Red Banana,” who was a September 11th hero and a former Boston College lacrosse player. Every year, on the home game closest to 9-11, our Boston College student section wears red bandanas to honor Welles.

I designed these uniforms because I think it would be an awesome tribute to Welles for the Eagles to take it a step further in recognizing his sacrifice each year. I don’t know if you guys post uniform proposals at all, or if you’re just into posting the actual uniform news around sports. Either way, I thought I’d run this by you guys, as you seem like a great medium to get the idea out there. I think it would be a great tribute for Boston College to adopt as an annual, one-game uniform.

-Derek

. . .

And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

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And now…Comrade Marshall awards…

For those of you who follow Stirrup Fridays, you know we had quite a set yesterday, but due to the leader of the revolution, Comrade Marshall, being in beloved Ballmer (knocking back a few Natty Boh’s no doubt), his decision to award this week’s UW Stirrup has been delayed. But no more, since Roberts Rules of Rups are back in order. Here is Comrade:

Good day comrades~

I am nearing the end of a week in mah haome town’a bawler murlin, so I will be brief.

• I left the bag of packaged stirrups ready to mail on the kitchen table, so if you are waiting for something, that’s where they are, I will be back in Chicago on Monday. My sincere apologies, I am about as bright as I look.

• As for this weeks winner, it was a tough choice, we have a great “in action” shot, a competitive runner, ruppings hung by the chimney, and more outstanding work by Pete Wwwww.

• But I have to make a choice, and when I think about how I left the revolution on the kitchen table along with my own travelin’ stirrups, I can’t help but appreciate that someone brought a pair of stirrups with them for the beach in Jamaica. I know, I know, it’s a pretty standard leg shot, and the Comrade has some gnarly toes, but the periphery of what it took deserves some respect.

• This was a tough choice, and don’t despair if you didn’t take home the prize, you can win won for a body of work, and even though I only declare one winner, that doesn’t necessarily mean I only sent out one pair last week, or will only do one pair this week, I’m a sucker.

From each according his stirrvp, to each according their strype!

Comrade Marshall

. . .

Thank you Comrade.

If you’re not a member of Stirrup Nation and want to join, just visit Comrade Marshall’s house of hose (and you can see the available selections here) or if you have any questions about the availability of stirrups, drop him a line at rpmarshallart@gmail.com.

So, comrades — why don’t you pick up a pair or three and show us your rups!

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Catherine Ryan’s 5 & 1

The five and one has been a staple of Uni Watch for three years, usually ably administered by Jim Vilk. But he got old and tired, so we needed someone young and fresh. And we’ve found that someone in this year’s new 5 & 1 decider…Catherine Ryan.

Not a whole heckuva lot of games this week, so with a smaller pool to choose from, we may find there is more agreement today. I have my own picks for the “best” (hint, it looks like an intrasquad scrimmage) and second best (*coughsecchampinshipcough*) but it’s not my call. The “bad” one might be a little more difficult, as there were a few bad looks on the gridiron this weekend. Anyway, here’s Catherine and her week 14 (and final regular season) 5 & 1:

. . .

Happy Sunday, UniWatchers! Slim pickings the past few days”¦and beggars can’t be choosers. But UniWatch pays me the big bucks to choose. So, here we go!

5. Northern Illinois vs. Kent State: This, for obvious reasons, wasn’t one of the major games of the week. However, I think it was one of the better looking!

4. Kansas vs. West Virginia: The main reason I picked this game is because I really like WVU in the golden tops. Kansas doesn’t do much for me but I do love the blue pants on the road!

3. Texas vs. Kansas State: Texas is the only team I like in all-whites. I’m not usually a big fan of purple but K-State makes it tolerable!

2. Alabama vs. Georgia: Great match-up. Great game. Great uniforms.

1. Nebraska vs. Wisconsin: This was beautiful.

And the bad one…

+1 North Dakota State vs. South Dakota State: I went with a little known game mainly because everyone has already seen how terrible Stanford looked. (Baylor, too!)

I look forward to hearing what you all think! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

. . .

Thanks Catherine! O.M.G. — it took 14 weeks, but we finally agreed on the TOP 3 games! Oh sure, just when the regular season’s ending too. Nice choice for the “bad” game as well, although you really couldn’t have gone wrong with either Stanford/UCLA or Baylor/OSU. Readers, how’d she do?

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That will do it for this Sunday. I want to express my deep and sincere thanks to both Terry “TJ” Duroncelet and Catherine Ryan for a great season of NCAA reporting and grading — hope you’ll all join me in that. Also, big thanks to Ricko and Tim E. O’Brien — Rick for his “50 Years Ago” and Tim for his Duck Tracker. In a fall when I had about a bazillion non-Uni Watch things going on in my life, their contributions were invaluable and truly, truly, enabled me to bring you full content each weekend for the past 14 weeks. So, guys (and gal), thanks so much!

I normally do “BCS Bowl Predictions” at this time of year — and I will again, in very abbreviated form, since many of them are set anyway. They’ll be officially announced tonight:

BCS Bowl: Notre Dame vs. Alabama (1/7/13, Miami, FL)
Rose Bowl: Stanford vs. Wisconsin (1/1/13, Pasadena, CA)
Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. Louisville (1/1/13, Miami, FL)
Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Oklahoma (1/2/13, New Orleans, LA)
Fiesta Bowl: Kansas State vs. Oregon (1/3/13, Glendale, AZ)

Most of these are slam dunks, but there are a few at-large bids: Sugar Bowl, which normally gets the SEC Champion, will take SEC *runnerup* Florida (who should close the season at #3), since Alabama will go to the BCS bowl and an at-large (they’ll probably take Big 12 runner-up Oklahoma); Fiesta, which gets the Big-12 and an at-large, will take Oregon, who should finish the season at #4; and Orange, which gets the ACC and an at-large, will likely take Big East Champion Louisville. The BCS (#1 & #2) and Rose (B1G and PAC-12 champs) are set.

Everyone have a great week, and I’ll see you next Saturday for the Army/Navy game!

. . .

“Even you traditionalists have to admit the B1G Championship game looks like a intersquad game. Every time I look up at the screen I have to think for a second which team is Wisconsin and which is Nebraska. If ever a game screamed out for a little differentiation, it would be this one. Although it seems a good rule of thumb is the team scoring all the touchdowns in Wisconsin.”
–Rob Holecko