By Phil Hecken
Welcome to another fine edition of Sunday Morning Uni Watch. We’re minus one piece today (the Duck Tracker) since the boys from Eugene had a bye week. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t lots of wild, wacky and crazy uniforms this week. No sir. It does not.
In fact, in a week that didn’t feature too many (if any) marquee matchups, it seemed like the time for many schools to break out some of their crazier clownsuits outfits.
So, now, to take you through all the uniform machinations that took place in week four of the NCAA season, here’s the man with the plan, TJ Duroncelet and the…
Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet
Yesterday was the last day of Summer, and today marks the first day of Autumn. You have no idea how high my excite levels are right now. But with all of the bum weather from yesterday, you wouldn’t have even known that Autumn was here. Basically, Summer was throwing a temper tantrum and was NOT going to go away for 9 months quietly. It even gave me a quick power outage just before 4pm.
From Friday:
• Nothing too uni-notable from the Boise St./Fresno St. game, but for whatever reason, the colors seemed to have really popped in that game. Wish I had a better photo.
From Saturday:
• What’s this? The beautiful work of a photographer that shares a very-mutual love for Autumn? No, that’s just an extreme close-up of the shoulder panel of a Virginia Tech player. O.K., that is a nice photograph, but it’s kinda hard to tell the difference. VT wore those uniforms for Military Appreciation Day against Marshall. The conditions were so wet, that some of the Hokie players’ helmet decals were falling off, namely VT Quarterback Logan Thomas.
• Syracuse wore new blue (and slightly orange) helmets against Tulane. Also of note, I’m working on another NFL uniform project, and already had an idea of what the Jaguars new mess helmets should look like. Here’s what I posted over a month ago on August 15th (this is a WIP mind you, not the final product). Methinks someone from the Salt City is stalking my Tumblr. And a note from last week, Syracuse’s opponent from last week was Wagner, who wore some sweet socks.
• Oh joy, it’s the Rutgers Ebony Knights.
• There are quite a few college football players protesting the NCAA by putting “APU” somewhere on their uniforms. “According to ESPN, the players included Georgia OL Kolton Houston, who was kept from playing for three years by a NCAA ruling on a drug test, plus Georgia Tech’s QB Vad Lee and defensive end Jeremiah Attaochu. According to the National College Players Association, a player advocacy group, it will include others throughout the day.” You can read the article here.
• Maryland wore their “WE <3 MARYLAND!!!" uniforms against West Virginia. Now, Paul already said his piece about the new Hubris suits, but here’s what I think: I actually don’t hate these. I like the staggered fields on the “sleeves”, I like the custom helmets, and these uniforms actually stagger the flag quadrant patterns, which was a huge issue with the previous versions. My only three complaints are: 1) they should’ve gone with a white uniform instead of insanely-loud red. 2) they should’ve (or at least could’ve) used white helmet shells instead of black. 3) The big MARYLAND on the back of the helmets is pretty lame. Doesn’t look good on UConn, doesn’t look good here. Overall, a very small but definite push from the previous two seasons.
• Last week, there was a rumored laundry incident that caused Louisiana-Monroe to use last-minute backup jerseys. This week, they were back in their normal (and much better) tops. Oh, and this was my first time seeing the new 2013 Baylor uniforms in action. Excellent combo, and I liked the all-green suits they wore in their home-opener.
• As I noted last week, Kent State wore mono-white, probably due to not wanting to clash with LSU’s gold pants. They looked much better this week against Penn State.
• Dammit, ESPN graphics team. I hope they don’t do this to the Utah Aggies.
• I can’t tell if these are some of the best or worst flag-desecration uniforms I’ve ever seen.
• Texas wore cancer-awareness helmet decals on Saturday against Kansas State.
• The state of Auburn’s sleeve stripes is pitiful. That’s the QB, for Nutella’s sake! Time to take the Northwestern route. Conditions were so wet that some of the LSU players looked like they had screened numbers. One of the LSU players got a little friendly with the turf. I find it kinda disappointing that LSU decided not to put their white-against-SEC-teams rule aside for one game and wear the purple tops, since this was the 25th anniversary of the The Earthquake Game. Look at how the yard numbers are the same 25 years ago as they are now, right down to the drop shadow. This particular playcard caught my attention, as it has the current Twitter logo, the old Yahoo! logo, the Instagram logo, and the SportsCenter? logo. I really wish I could decode what they mean.
• BYU wore their royal blues against Utah. Wait, blue pants, blue chrome facemasks and decals?
• Oregon State went all-white against San Diego State.
• Indiana broke out the candy stripe helmets a second time against Mizzou, who had a new helmet design of their own.
• And last but not least, Wyoming wore their taco-medley suits against Air Force.
That does it for Week 4 of the 2013 NCAA season. Too much rain for the transition from Summer-to-Autumn, really, and that’s coming from someone who loves rain! Really makes you appreciate the sunny scene at the Iowa/Western Michigan game. It’s actually raining right now as I type this, and it’s making me sleepy. I’m just gonna… *yawns* lay down for a few minutes…
Thanks, TJ! Nice rundown, as always. I am going to be completely honest. I didn’t hate the Maryland *Pride* uniforms. I didn’t like them either, but they certainly aren’t the worst thing they’ve worn on the field (damning with faint praise?). Indiana really needs to dump those shiny chrome domes, and Syracuse…why? You’re named “Orange,” not “Blue.”
Readers? What did you think of yesterday’s games?
Catherine’s 5 & 1
Happy Sunday, UniWatchers! There were a lot of great (and a couple questionable…) match-ups this past week/weekend. I had a long list of games I liked and received a ton of tips from some of you readers! As always, any tips and, more importantly, any criticism, is seen and appreciated. It would be much worse to write for people who don’t care so I appreciate everyone taking the time to share their thoughts! Time for the countdown!
I’m a sucker for blue on red and when a road team is wearing dark pants you have my attention. The game was clean and my only issue was Houston’s metallic lids.
I loved UNC’s road uniforms here. I’m not usually a fan of adding black to the color scheme but UNC’s pants and helmet accent didn’t bother me. From afar, it almost looked like navy. Georgia Tech was clean with the gold lids/bottoms and ended up making a comeback in some terrible weather. Great game!
North Texas usually catches my eye because I am a fan of their minimalist design/great color green. Pair them with Georgia’s gorgeous uniforms and this game was definitely making the countdown!
This game didn’t win any points for weather. This game was one of my favorites and I received numerous tips to my inbox. This was the favorite this weekend!
1. Utah vs. BYU
This was a late game so I didn’t even see it until most of the countdown was complete but WOW. The color-on-color, the symmetry between the uniform designs, the rivalry: what a gorgeous game
Honorable Mention: Maryland for not making me upset. For being entirely over the top, these were actually pretty sick. This game was pretty nice.
I don’t really have any words for this game.
Thanks for reading! Enjoy a full day of NFL action!
Uni Watch News Ticker: Wow — yesterday must have been one of the slowest uni watching days in recent memory (either that or the uniwatching account was broken) but there are very few ticker items for today. So few, in fact, that this will be the old school-style ticker. … Gotta love these socks! Al Neufeld writes, “My alum, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in the Canadian University League, debuted new retro unis (Friday) night in their game against the university of Alberta Golden Bears. I have done research and I don’t think they ever wore such unis, but looking at them, they seem pretty nice. I think you will like the socks. You can see pics here.” … To commemorate those who lost their lives in the tragic Navy Yard shooting earlier this week, DC United will wear this jersey (looks like a black armband and flag[?] were added) — thanks to Matt Harris who re-tweeted that at me. … The Wrigley Field 100th Anniversary Logo has arrived, says Anthony Nuccio, “and I love that design.” … We may have seen these before, but it never hurts to see again — “This guy on the new era cap talk forum managed to find three caps from an old Astros prototype that was never made!” (nice find by Allen Why). … As you may already know, the Oakland Raiders were originally going to be called the Senors. The nickname lasted a little over a week before public outcry forced the name’s ouster. On his website, Andrew McKillop wrote a brief article explaining how the Senors name was chosen and the public’s reaction. “Also, the team didn’t care or know that the plural form for Señor is Señores,” says Andrew. … Sequim High School in Washington State recently wore “camo” uniforms, which incorporated the name of local military veterans, for their recent game against Bremerton High School (thanks to Graham Clayton). … Also from Graham, a blog posting listing the 35 strangest jumpers worn in the Australian Football League since 1987. … In Sports Illustrated‘s top 100 funny pics, Josh Claywell noticed several great photos, but what’s sure to stick out is SI’s overuse — abuse, even — of the word “beloved.” “I think I saw that word seven or eight times in the first 23 photo captions,” says Josh. … “Interesting field markings at Milwaukee County Stadium for this game,” writes Peter Fredrickson. “Possibly, the smallest helmet logo that I’ve ever seen on a field (:51 mark). And, I believe, I see the name ‘SAINTS’ painted in the right end zone (1:52 mark).”
And that’s going to do it for this fine Sunday. Little shorter post than usual (and I’m sure many of you are fine with that), but still chock full of uni-goodness. Thanks (as always) to Terry and Catherine, and the whole crew will be back next Sunday. I’ll catch you guys next Saturday. Everyone have a great week!
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.
Peace
“While channel surfing through the games today, we saw Toledo-Central Michigan. The wife loved Central’s throbacks but met Toledo’s off-white with ‘If “meh” was a color, that would be it’.”
–Ray Barrington
Someone last night asked in the comments section about the extra patch Tennessee QB Justin Worley had on his jersey. Sorry, I don’t have a screen shot of Worley. Here is a release from a few years ago when the patches were first used.
The torch is the “VOLScholar” insignia, representing a program through the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center in cooperation with the men’s and women’s athletics departments.
The program represents academic and citizenship-building and student-athletes must earn the right to wear the patch with a 3.0 grade-point average the previous fall and/or spring semester.
During the 60s, Lambeau Field used both team names in the end zone and a smaller G at the 50 – the Packers name was stenciled in gold in one end zone, while the other team’s name was painted in a team color on a white block in the other end zone – the white would get painted over and the name changed for the next game. At County Stadium, there was indeed a smaller G and team names in block letters – something they first did in 1966 because there was no Braves baseball there that the Packers had to work around.
That’s it. I’ve finally reached “get the fuck off my fucking lawn” status. There is no such thing as a good-looking NCAA football matchup anymore.
I mean, IU/Mizzou looked beyond stupid but I saw like a dozen other games that could have easily been that &1.
They say that President of the United States is the world’s toughest job. Bullshit. Uni Watch 5 & 1 picker has to be it. At least the President gets paid.
I’m with you, and Lou Holtz said last night on ESPN that he’s tired of teams changing their uniforms because he cannot recognize them anymore.
LSU-Auburn looked great, though. And Army’s uniforms were sharp and simple. UNC, however, looked abysmal, more like a minor-league club of the Carolina Panthers.
First off, who the fuck cares what Lou Holtz thinks about anything? Funny how you ignore the fact that he chocked an official to the point of unconsciousness while head coach at Notre Dame and….nothing, not even a reprimand from the NCAA, let alone the school. You can take Holtz and his lisp and cram them up your ass.
And you and every other whiner who moans and bitches about all of the different uniforms forget a very important fact; without the multitude of new uniforms being introduced and worn in college sports now and occasionally in the pros, this web site wouldn’t exist as it currently does and Lukas wouldn’t be working for ESPN as he does. Oh sure this website would exist, but it wouldn’t get nearly the traffic that it does, not that the numbers are anything to be proud of. But there certainly wouldn’t be daily updates and reports and tickers. You’d have a website that updated once a week, maybe more during baseball season.
Yeah geeman, what gives?!?
Paul, Phil and the gang spend alot of time putting together a site devoted to discussion and debate of tends in sports uniforms. Then you and your ilk have to go and ruin it for everyone by expressing your opinions on uniforms!!!
Geez, how RUDE!!!
? Funny how you ignore the fact that he chocked an official to the point of unconsciousness while head coach at Notre Dame and….nothing, not even a reprimand from the NCAA, let alone the school
Yeah…I was at that game, with a ringside seat, and…nobody got choked into unconsciousness. Feel free to dislike Holtz, but do avoid spreading bullshit like that.
james, That wooshing noise? It’s you missing the point of my post as it sails by.
JTH and geeman are being big crybbaies becuase they want one team to wear a red/blue/green/whatever uni and the other to wear white.
That’s no. No multiple uniforms because their tiny ittle brains just can’t comprehend or keep up.
But let’s just imagine that college football didn’t have Nike/Under Armour/whatever churning out a new uni every week for Oregon/Matyland/whoever, but the same boring plain tired cliche uni year after year after year after year after year after year.
And the same was true for ALL sports.
This website wouldn’t exist as it currently does.
There wouldn’t be daily updates, hell there might not even be weekly updates, traffic on the site would be even lower than it is already and Paul wouldn’t have a uni watch column at ESPN.
As for you DJ, sure you had a ringside seat. Right. And you ignore the fact that Holtz received ZERO punishment for choking an official unconscious, but of course since he was head coach at Notre Dame he can do whatever the fuck he wants, right?
Maybe we’ve gotten to the point where a “1 & 5” would make more sense.
Very interesting MLS color-vs-color matchup in Kansas City for the casual soccer fan… Sporting KC wearing Blue Jays light blue against Toronto FC wearing Chiefs red.
I think light blue is a lot more associated with the Kansas City MLB team than the Toronto one these days.
It’s rather common. Several years ago, MLS abandoned the home/away uniform concept and went to the primary/change uniform principles that the rest of the soccer world uses. So, when both teams’ primary uniforms don’t clash (as in this case with Sporting’s light blue and TFC’s red), both teams will go primary. You’d see a change if, say, Chicago travelled to Toronto; the Fire would wear their navy change kit.
Okay, I didn’t mean the color-vs-color was unusual, I just meant that to the uninformed soccer fan, seeing those two colors, my initial reaction is Kansas City = red because of the Chiefs and Toronto = blue because of the Blue Jays.
For the Royals I think of royal blue, and light blue as a secondary color, i.e. powder blue road jersey instead of gray back in the 1980s.
Pre-1985 college football helmet quiz on Sporcle today: link
For whatever reason, the ones with the C logos (including “Cats”) took me the longest to figure out.
Couldn’t figure out the first one for a few minutes (don’t want to spoil it), guessed correctly on a few more, but recognized most, got 20/20 eventually.
That was fun.
MLS uniforms always have flags on the sleeve (i.e. USA flag for American-based teams, Canadian flags for Canada-based teams). Only change to DCU uniform is the black arm band, best I can tell.
I like Catherine’s 5&1 a lot, even though she has alarmingly contemporary views sometimes.
She’s pretty much the only person who writes for this site whose tastes skew more to the modern than to the traditionalist, so I appreciate her viewpoint.
I think she does a good job. Her tastes are more in line with mine than the rest so I tend to enjoy them as well. Not all the time but more than most others that are here.
I was hoping the Pittsburgh-Duke game made it but as a Panthers fan I may be a bit biased (as long as they never wear those awful white pants again). But I never have the issues with the 5&1 that others do. It’s a job I wouldn’t want to have every week. Not so much for the hassle but because I think exactly zero people would agree with most of my 5’s and especially hate my &1’s.
The Astros pics says MiLB in the photo. Maybe these were for a farm team?
That’s what I was thinking.
Arsenal wearing a jersey commemorating the 100th anniversary of their move to the Islington area of London:
link
Agree with the #1 game big time this week. BYU looked outstanding!
My only knock would be that metallic facemask BYU wore. Plain white, or even a matching royal blue, would have been spectacular.
Aaah…the old school Ticker. Feels like a comforting friend has returned after a long absence.
Agreed. Old ticker > new ticker
Agreed!!! I love the weekend ticker addition especially since it seems to reduce the Monday one to a manageable size but wasn’t very fond of the new ticker style. Even if it’s just for one day welcome back old ticker. Glad to see you return, my friend.
The playcard with the “SportsCenter?” logo is actually the ESPN ScoreCenter app logo.
Thank you for the clear-up! =D I wouldn’t have known because I don’t really fool around with any of ESPN’s apps.
No problem. I also just realized that like the yahoo logo, this ScoreCenter logo is also outdated.
Those aren’t UNC’s road uniforms, or jerseys for that matter. Although they were on the road, Georgia Tech usually wears white jerseys at home forcing their opponents to wear their home jerseys.
A few questions about the 5 & 1 countdown:
Weather factors in to the ratings?
Off-field rivalries factor in, as well?
Your favorite game is #2?
#1 was an afterthought?
I think she was remarking about games she watched, or perhaps the game everyone figured would be the best looking game heading into the weekend.
She didn’t see the #1 game but was blown away by the look of it and put it first.
I think the weather comment was somewhat in jest, or perhaps she liked the effect the weather had on the UNC@GT game and that boosted that score for her. Or perhaps she was remarking about how the weather made the game sloppy (whereas there were no real ill-effects caused by the rain in the Georgia Tech game).
Since I have become a season ticket holder for the AZ cardinals I have noticed some more uni-noticable items… Has there ever been a NFL receiving corp that did not have a number in the 80s?
Not including TE the 2013 AZ cardinals have none… Fitz-11 Roberts-12 Floyd-15 Brown-13 Taylor-18
don’t know if this is a first or not but as wife outs coming in use lower numbers the numbers in the 80s will become a thing of the past
I tend to agree with Paul, Phil and a lot of other commenters when it comes to camo unis and flag desecration, but man did Wyoming’s unis seem extra offensive. It’s one thing to run around and play dress up and embarrass yourself week to week but to do it against a team of players that are yanno actual soldiers seems incredibly disrespectful.
^^^This^^^
I wish the Bengals would make the orange their primary jersey. The stupid white side panel seems less annoying, and tigers are mostly orange.
Since black is my favorite color I prefer to see them in the black rather than the orange. But it doesn’t matter what they wear. They along with Arizona and Atlanta all need a major overhaul ASAP.
Not a huge fan of the particular uniforms but Houston/Baltimore is EXACTLY how a football game is supposed to look. Dark jerseys for the home team with white pants and colored pants for the road team.
Exactly. I wish the NCAA would get this memo. All colored vs all white would look much better if they followed the pattern this game did and stopped going mono. But then again at this point as long as the teams are wearing school colors it’s almost a plus.
Im not so into the all white. Only in a few cases. Id much rather see colored pants with white jerseys.
Jets/Bills got it right too. Except for the Jets horrible two shades of green. Bring back kelly green!
saints are wearing white at home vs the cards
I was at the Maryland game. In the second half, when the rain was coming down steadily and the visibility was a bit less, those bright reds looked really good. Unis stood out and the the bright white numbers were easily readable. Thought they looked great.
I didn’t particularly like the look of the camo jerseys the kids were wearing, but I really like the idea of putting a veteran’s name on the back of the jersey. That simple act seems like a better tribute that slapping stars and stripes and camo everywhere you can.
Yes.
*Eagerly awaiting Graf Zeppelin’s comment on Jets wearing “proper socks”*
I’m more concerned with the olive-drab patchwork jerseys. They look so awful in sunlight one wonders if Nike’s designers are color-blind.
And they always wear the proper socks with the green jerseys.
The Bills look so much better with the blue pants rather than the all white. The Jets? They just look like a mess as always. But then again I’m the only person on the planet that thought this was the best look they’ve ever had and wish they would go back to it:
link
@Bromo,
Yea, you’re probably the only one who thinks that was their best look. Personally I think 1965-77 was their best look. The 1990-97 version conjures Coslet, Kotite, Browning Nagle, Blair Thomas, the Fake Spike and the Shovel Pass.
I liked it. I thought it was a nice update to the 80’s look. Plus as I’ve said black is my favorite color so that helped for me.
But then again I’m not a Jets fan. Up until the last few years I’ve had my own personal football hell being a Falcons fan. And now that we actually play good we look horrible (they should be wearing black and black helmets not red and/or red BTW). I can’t ever win.
It’s not a bad look. The green looked a little too bright in some lighting conditions, but they at least fixed the comically-oversized shoulder numerals from the previous set. It was fine, but they never did anything special while wearing it (0-1 in the postseason), and wore it during some of the worst moments, dumbest decisions and bleakest seasons in team history, which for the Jets is saying something.
Majestic has released their new catalog for next season and you can view all the teams new bp jerseys.
link
Going through my uniform schedule my “beloved” (sorry, couldn’t resist) Falcons will be wearing the red jersey/white pants combo the first 6 games of the season. Factoring in their bye that means the white road jersey won;t see a regular season game until Week 8 on October 27th. When was the last time a team not named the Cowboys went that long wearing only one uniform to start a season?
Cleveland in 2011 wore white every regular season game.
What about the last time with a colored jersey? I would guess maybe the Giants since they play the NFC East schedule with most of them until recently preferring to go white at home a lot?
Georgia Tech gave the first look at the Throwbacks they will wear on Thursday.
link
They are throwbacks to the Dodd-Era uniforms with some changes. At first I though they were late-1970s throwbacks, but then I realized that if that were the case then the gold stripe should be on top. That’s when I realized the cuff was mean to be the bottom stripe replicating the Dodd-Era unis.
There are some obvious changes, first of all we were using black as our accent color on the uniforms back then. Black was never made an official accent color, and while it used is some areas (logos, letterheads, and academic stuff), it will never be one, we officially made Navy that accent color sometime in the past 20 years. So the black has been replaced with Navy on the uniforms.
Also different is the shade of gold, the gold used on the uniforms back then was closer to athletic gold than old gold (or official color), but the gold pants were somewhere in-between old gold and athletic gold. For these uniforms we are using Old Gold.
I’m confident the pants will be Old Gold with a basic 3 stripe pattern (Navy/White/Navy), though we’ll likely see the official pants sometime in the next few days.
The only thing that is up in the air is the helmet color. We used multiple helmet with these uniforms. It could be that we use helmets identical to the throwbacks we used in 2006, or we could go with gold helmets. It’ll be interesting to see if we opt for grey facemasks with either selection (we switched to dark facemasks sometime in the 70s), or if we apply striping to the helmets.
Great throwbakcs, horrible replicas.
link
Its like russell isn’t even trying anymore in this department, at least they are back to “reasonable” pricing at $55, instead of the $75 the replicas have spiked up to over the past few years.
The Bills look so awesome today, even with the wrong socks. That is all.
Still think they should have tried to sell the naming rights to JetBlue or Green Giant.
I’m a Houston guy and I hated the Cougars’ unis as I sat in the stadium yesterday… but looking at the pics in the 5&1 is making me re-think that. They look pretty good in those shots. I still hate the gray stripes on the pants, though. They look like a strip of duct tape.
Rice OTOH looks darn near perfect.
Houston is a mess almost equal to the early 2000’s Buffalo Bills. Rice does look very nice and is a good balance to all the wildness the rest of the NCAA seems to be going with lately. I’ll even give them a pass on the facemask since they use it as an actual color elsewhere. But they have almost gone too far the other way most times. They’re pushing Penn State levels or plain some weeks. That’s equally as bad as the over the top insanity of teams like Houston.
Ok Josh, I’m calling you out about the “overuse” and “abuse” of the word beloved. I looked at all 100 SI photos, and I only saw “beloved” used once (for Dick Vitale). Now it is possible I missed 6 others. If so, I apologize. But I think it’s more likely that you “imagined” you saw it used 7 or 8 times in the first 23 photos. Can you tell us which pictures had it used?
As far as the Skinswatch goes, Rick Reilly has a really interesting counterpoint on ESPN. A highlight… “White America has spoken. You aren’t offended, so we’ll be offended for you.”
Graham Clayton’s link was fantastic – there are so many atrocious footy jumpers! I am pretty happy with the Fremantle vs Hawthorn looks for the grand final.
The UNC black for black sake unis are hidious. Bleecchh!
The black trim especially has no place on the rest of the sets.