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Sunday Morning Uni Watch

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By Phil Hecken

It could have been so much worse. Instead, rivalry weekend brought a rather tame set of uniforms, and that’s A-OK by me.

Sure, Ohio State broke out special one-offs, and the Civil War produced a retina-searing color vs. color matchup, but for the most part, everything was as it should be.

USC and UCLA played in color vs. color that works, Auburn and Alabama played as we knew they would, and Florida versus Florida State played well, like we know them. And that’s a good thing.

Our biggest (or at least my biggest) fears were not realized after the incredible hype of adidas and aTm, as it turned out the only “carmouflage” (as they called it) turned out to be cleats and arm sleeves (phew). And even that was tame when you saw it on the field.

However, the biggest stories for rivalry weekend weren’t the unis (thankfully), but the games themselves. Ohio State (stay classy) and Michigan played what was easily the best football game of the year. For about 3 hours. Alabama and Auburn played one for the ages. If you didn’t see what happened, or haven’t heard about it, I’d just recommend googling “Iron Bowl 2013”. But the last play of the game was just incredible. In a nutshell, with no time left on the clock, Auburn cornerback Chris Davis caught a 57-yard field goal attempt by Alabama in the back of the end zone, ran it out down the left sideline and went 109 yards untouched to beat the Crimson Tide, 34-28.

I’ll leave you with that before turning the rest of the post over to Terry.

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet

Question of the day: how do you avoid a food coma around the holidays? You don’t. You will be entranced by the Itis before you even know it. And if turkey, sweet potatoes, and bread pudding aren’t your preference for a full stomach, then all of the closer-than-almost-getting-caught-by-your-mom-for-stealing-the-freshly-baked-cookies games from rivalry week just might do the trick. I mean, just look at some of these scores. Anyway…

From Tuesday:

Umyouit… I’ve seen my fair share of G.I. Joevember uniforms over the last few years (especially since 2011), but… wow. How can one team forget how to number font? Why do the camouflage thing when you can barely see it? Especially on the NIU unis? You know what? Rather then tear my hair out trying to come up with something to describe the Adidas Bowl (as it was referred to on the site earlier this past Wednesday), I’ll link you to AVGN’s Tiger Electronic Games video (just substitute the games with Western Michigan and Northern Illinois’s getups). The key point in the vid would be here.

From Thursday:

• Texas Tech wore their Lone Star uniforms (the road versions) against Texas.

• Mississippi State wore their Gold Egg uniforms with shiny gold chrome helmets against Ole Miss. Not bad. Ya know, since Miss. St. is really the only one who gets into the spirit of this particular game year-after-year, why not just make gold an official color for the school? You’d have some aesthetic differentiation from Texas A&M, plus you’d have an excuse to spam this video. They won, BTW.

From Friday:

• Houston wore their G.I. Joevember BFBS costumes against SMU. At least they got into the spirit of get 2% off of a bunch of shit that you don’t need Black Friday.

• A player from Florida International lost his Adidas logo *woohoo!* and started to lose his Conference USA patch on his jersey. Credit to Jay Abbott for that shot.

• UCF wore black helmets for the first time since 1993 against South Florida.

These colorsTHESE COLORSOH MY GOD THIS IS THE MOST COLORFUL GAME I’VE EVER SEEN AND I LOVED EVERY BIT OF IT… well, almost every bit of it. I wouldn’t have gone with those dark green helmets. A kelly green helmet or even the yellow lids from last year would’ve been far better. Let’s petition for every Civil War game to be color-vs.-color from now until the end of time.

From Saturday:

• The Duke Black Devils… won? The Duke Black Devils won. Huh. How ’bout that? Good for them! Their season, not the uniforms from the UNC game. Just so we’re clear.

• THE wore mono-white against Michigan. Basically, apart from the fact that it’s a road flip of last year’s uni, it has the same exact design. Also, have this thing that I made. The amount of sorry I am is none. Kinda like this guy.

• As it should be, UCLA and USC went color-vs.-color in their annual rivalry game.

• The Tennessee sideline looked to have had coffee or something steaming in what looks to be a coffee pot (on the part with the tarp). Credit to John Gray for the pic.

• Texas A&M disappointed me on Saturday. I was expecting a good laugh with what they were teasing earlier in the week. Turns out it was just some new sleeve things and cleats. Bummer.

• Arizona wore their copper helmets against Arizona State.

• Couple of notes from Bama/Auburn: Several Tigers had orange UnderArmour sleeves with a partial sleeve stripe. Why not just have the full stripe? Oh, right, because that would actually make sense. Also from Auburn, a few wardrobe malfunctions, including one player’s belt not being done up, and another player’s jersey was torn badly, so they had a crew with a sewing machine fix the jersey right then and there on the sideline! Here’s the Auburn player who had to stand there in the cold. Why were there no blood jerseys on hand, especially since this was a home game? Credit to Chris Perrenot for the belt pic.

That puts Week 14 in the books. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to eat my weight in chocolate cake, sweet potato pie, and bread pudding. See you next week.

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Catherine 5 & 1 Animation

Catherine Ryan’s

Five and One

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Happy Sunday, Uni Watchers! I have to say that this weekend was probably the best college football weekend that I can remember watching. Bowl season is fun and there have been some great games in my lifetime but WOW this rivalry weekend saw almost every game come down to the final few possessions. We also saw a few brawls, some tempers boiling over, and that hatred between teams that is unfortunately rare in the pros these days. I loved it. Let’s get to the countdown!

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5. Iowa vs. Nebraska: This game got more attention for the Pelini meltdown than for the great uniform matchup.

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4. Alabama vs. Auburn: This was the game of the night. You can’t ask for much more than a gorgeous matchup blowing up the BCS.

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3. Penn State vs. Wisconsin: If you’re going to get upset at home by a dismal Penn State team than you better look good doing it.

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2. Ohio State vs. Michigan: This was a fantastic game. It was a stunning game visually and showed why it is the best rivalry in college football.

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1. UCLA vs. USC: No contest. As always, this was gorgeous.

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+1 Western Michigan vs. NIU: Okay, so I had a bunch of tips suggesting that I choose the Oregon/Oregon State game for this +1 but honestly I like those Oregon uniforms. That game wasn’t pretty but I will cut the Ducks a break this week. THIS game was so hideous. It looks like someone took templates for a football uniform and just photoshopped a bunch of random sh*t on them.

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I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and enjoyed Rivalry Weekend as much as I did!

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Uni Watch News Ticker:

Seems that there was a jersey malfunction on Friday night for Jamal Crawford (nice grab by Ernest Penaflor). … Reader Ben Obecny was looking around kickstarter when he found this: The Schaumburg (Illinois) Boomers a Frontier League minor league baseball team is planning a 1 night only uniform redesign based on zombies. … Chad Hensley was watching the Missouri State High School Activities Association Class 6 Show-Me Bowl Finals Friday and noticed that the person in charge of the bugs for Fox Sports Midwest had some spelling errors throughout the game. Also from from that game’s pregame, you can see the MSHSAA logo as a helmet decal and Rock Bridge High School had a rather hideous helmet design. … This weekend Michigan hosted the first ever B1G hockey game against Ohio State. Says submitter Eric Glickman, “The color-on-color game was beautiful. And both teams have always worn football inspired hockey helmets which I think are friction’ awesome.” … Timothy Tryjankowski says a good guy to follow on Twitter is Sabres equipment guy David Williams. … Jerry Kulig has a question about the MSU Pride Stickers: “They’ve obviously been around a while, but I have never noticed. What are these things? there are “block s” decals on the right side. Thanks for any help.” … David Firestone found this sweet vintage Bears stadium banner, and here are the NASCAR paint scheme rankings for Chevy, and for Ford. … The AFL’s Richmond Tigers (Aussie footy) revealed new clash jumpers for ’14. The change gives the front and back black a strange shield-like shape, but definitely gives them more yellow to differentiate themselves from Essendon when they play one another (from Leo Strawn). … Dave Taylor was reading an article on the BBC which caught my eye – Falkirk v Rangers in the Scottish Cup — match report and photos here — and the teams are wearing inverse Puma template kits. Rangers (white kit, red accents, navy upper, navy shorts, navy socks) and Falkirk (Navy kit, red accents, white upper, white shorts, white socks). Says Dave, “I’m sure the same template in different club colours comes pretty often, but I don’t think I’ve seen it with Puma kits before, and not with the same team colours inverted.” … The Eagles plane had work done in Pittsburgh, and the workers left a personal touch (nice find by Robert Silverman. … And finally, Jeff Shirley noticed at “last night’s BYU/Utah State game (played at Energy Solutions Arena) that the NBA logo was taped over rather sloppily, and wondered why they didn’t just cover it all together.”

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And that will do it for this fine first Sunday in December. Mercifully, the pink and GIJoevember games are now behind us (right?), and we can move into the best parts of the football season. Thanks to TJ & Catherine, and of course all the ticker submitters. You guys have a great week and I will catch you next weekend.

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

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One for the road…
(from Bruce Menard!)

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“How long has it been since Duke football was relevant, you ask?”
–Rick “Ricko” Pearson

 
  
 
Comments (55)

    The Buckeyes in all-white is an abomination and should not exist. In fact, the entire practice of wearing a “special” uniform for the Michigan game is just getting out of hand. That game should be played color vs color, like USC/UCLA, and if the Buckeyes want a “special” uniform, they can put an “Ann Arbor is a Whore” sticker on the side of their helmets.

    I didn’t even notice that it was a special uniform, really, until Uni Watchers mentioned it. That’s how much I’ve payed attention to the Buckeyes this year, though, I suppose.

    Still, aside from the pants being lighter than usual, they pretty much looked the part to me.

    That’s how a special uniform should be done (at least by a traditional school)…. a something a little different that makes it a little unique, not something that is such an abominable eyesore of a wreck that it’s all you talk about instead of the game.

    See, I like color-vs-color in football, but only if both teams are from the same state, like the Civil War or UCLA/USC. Color is usually the home designation, and both teams are playing in front of some home fans. I know the logic on that is a little flimsy, but it works for me.

    Alabama-Tennessee used to be color-on-color, and it would look good in the present. I recall reading that Alabama does not want to resume this tradition.

    I’m more narrow-minded on that one. I only like USC vs. UCLA as color-vs-color because (a) they both legitimately share the Rose Bowl, and (b) dark red vs. light blue, with contrasting helmets, means that even an old grayscale TV could show that the teams are clearly different. If it’s two (compatible, not clashing!) home uniforms worn by both teams who could be the home team, it’s OK with me. Oregon vs. Oregon State? Never have a common home. So I wouldn’t accept that. But that’s just my take.

    They did share the LA Coliseum for years, not sure exactly how long, but it was quite a while before UCLA moved to the Rose Bowl.

    “That game should be played color vs color, like USC/UCLA, and if the Buckeyes want a “special” uniform, they can put an “Ann Arbor is a Whore” sticker on the side of their helmets.”

    ^^^link^^^

    I should note that Michigan’s hockey team has not “always” worn football-inspired helmets. Michigan first wore the “winged-helmet” design in the 1989 CCHA playoffs, and I recall that the football traditionalists weren’t too keen on the hockey team aping “their” team’s style.

    Ohio State hasn’t always worn football-inspired helmets, either. They’ve been in use only for the last two or three seasons.

    And for that matter, Notre Dame hasn’t always worn metallic gold.

    Kind of figured it was a recent development for OSU, but since I don’t follow them except in relation to Michigan, I didn’t want to comment out of my element.

    Michigan State has two helmet stickers this year. A spear with a feather on the left side of the helmet for individual plays and a block S on the right side of the helmet for team accomplishments.

    More specifically (quoting here from an MSU staffer): “The ‘Block S’ decal is awarded for wins and turnover margin. The ‘spear’ decal is awarded based on production points.”

    Non uninform question for you all… If this is next year and we have a four-team playoff, Alabama’s loss yesterday doesn’t knock them out of it. Does it make yesterday less dramatic?

    Only slightly. It’s still a last play victory (I heard it described as a “walk-off” last night, and I thought that phrase should be confined to baseball/softball), a scoring play that’s extremely rare (last one I remember was Devin Hester for the Bears against the Giants 3-4 years ago), in a rivalry game, that decided a division title.

    A walk-off in football, to me, is when the clock is below :40, the winning team has the ball, and the losing team is unable to force fourth down.

    Probably. But Alabama (and Michigan) deserved to lose for making a stupid decision. They could have taken the game into OT and probably won, but instead they went for the win and blew it.

    Regardless, even with a 4 team playoff, the system is still horribly flawed because it’s based on opinion. It isn’t the top 4 records, it’s the top 4 “ranked” teams, and those rankings are heavily biased towards certain conferences.

    Michigan would not have won in overtime; they had not stopped the OSU running game in regulation, and wouldn’t have done so in OT. Michigan was not stupid to go for the win; the error was Devin Gardner’s failure to recognize man coverage, and his throwing the ball to the receiver who ran straight into bracket coverage (instead of waiting for the receiver running an out pattern to get open).

    Maybe. Seeing how both teams scored over 40 points, it doesn’t seem like either defense was able to stop anything. I didn’t get to watch the entire game though, so…

    Michigan made a great decision. They were only playing for pride, so why not make a ballsy choice and win in regulation? If it had been Ohio State with the ball there, however, they would have had to kick and go to OT. You don’t lose your shot at a BCS championship game because of something like that.

    And in Alabama’s case, Saban went through his rationale in the post-game press conference — the kicker, though inexperienced, was hitting from 60 in warmups; they had the wind at their backs, etc. Sounds reasonable. But it seems that he didn’t think through all the possibilities, as in, “what if we miss.” Those big, bulky lineman who are perfect for field goal blocking were helpless in open-field play.

    Malzhan, on the other hand, realized what might happen and took advantage of a rare opportunity.

    The game would have still mattered as now Auburn would still have an opportunity to qualify for the playoffs (no matter the size). While Alabama would qualify win or lose, they still lost to their hated rival on the final play of the game. Plus they would potentially have the opportunity to play again. What’s better than one great game? Two.

    My guess is that “coffee pot” on the Tennessee sideline was, in fact, a hydrocollator:

    link

    Having wrecked my hamstring in my sophomore year of college, I became rather familiar with them. Pull the heavy canvas pack out of the boiling hot water, wrap it in a towel, and presto! Nice moist heat for 30-40 minutes of treatment while you got in some extra study time.

    I sense Catherine has been beaten down to reflect our views – this week’s Five and One, is Vikian-like

    No, he wouldn’t have put Penn State/Wisconsin in there. Wisconsin/Penn State, on the other hand, he would have.

    I bet he would have picked USF/UCF, though.

    The Buckeyes and Wolverines should look to their hockey counterparts for tips on how to dress for a rivalry game.

    Now we just need a color corrected version. The first frame was obviously colorized, while the second is a legitimate color photo. The Lions color-shift is especially jarring and annoying.

    Yeah, in a perfect world!
    I just didn’t have the time/patience to do a complete color correction. As it is, I played with the overall colors quite a bit before animating it. It was hard enough to cut and resize the two photos so that they’d even line up at all.

    It appears to be some sort of shenanigans on the balls thrown by Bart Starr and Norm Snead. In the two shots all the other balls have moved, yet their balls (you know what I mean) are in the same spot both in relation to their hands and in relation to the ceiling.

    Did they throw too soon, and their balls were added in manually in both shots?

    Best “uni-related” news from saturday:

    The old oaken bucket returning to Bloomington.

    Not a football fan here, but I don’t see what the big deal about the NIU uniform is. The numbers look pretty obvious to me, not hard to see. And they’re far more palatable to me than WMU’s number font.

    I think the Camo (and forgive me if I am repeating what someone said earlier in the week about aTm’s crazy design for their cleats) is very similar to the Dazzle camouflage used in WWI on war ships by the British and US Navies.

    link

    And in WWII. Modern digital camo, such as the Marine Corps MARPAT pattern (itself based on work originally done by Canada), is based on the theory behind Dazzle.

    Show me where exactly in the column did I say anything along the lines of “Fuck Michigan”. I said I was not sorry for the pairing of the song and the gif, and I saw an opportunity to use the second gif. I have no preference or hatred for either school.

    I’ve been off the grid, but this Thanksgiving weekend, I’m grateful to hear from Ricko again, and also grateful to have learned – how did I not know about this before? – that this was once an actual professional basketball uniform:

    link

    Yet another piece of evidence for my theory that 1973 will one day be remembered as the pinnacle of human civilization.

    The pinnacle of human civilization was a few thousand years ago when we built the pyramids. Obviously we’ve been in a decline since then, or the aliens would have visited again.

    Ohio State looked ok yesterday. Those unis were not bad. I would have preferred all gray since the colors are scarlet and gray. And since so many teams now wear gray even if it is not their color.

    Ideally I want throwbacks. It bugs me to not wear actual throwbacks.

    I also get bugged when I read those were a tribute to the 1950 snowbowl game. In that game it was color on color and Ohio State wore red jerseys, white helmets and white pants. So dont give me that tribute to 1950 snow bowl game.

    link

    Larry,

    I’m pretty sure (would have to check my timeline, but that’s a long way back) that Nike/OSU backed off that “Snow Bowl” bullshit almost as soon as they spoke it and flatly admitted it was just a marketing ploy.

    Totally not uni-related, but…

    They keep showing this Chevy Silverado pickup commercial, something about its quiet cabin. Spokesdude says, “Silverado is second to nobody, and by ‘nobody’ I mean Ram and Ford.”

    Doesn’t that mean the Silverado is actually second to Ram and Ford?

    Just sayin’. Nothing else interesting going on in the alleged football game at the Meadowlands….

    Local newspaper reported that the Auburn arm sleeves were actually shooting sleeves for the basketball team that a few players liked and started to wear..

    A probable reason for there being no blood jersey on the sideline is that Auburn typically orders 4 jersey’s per player: 2 blues and 2 whites. One they moved to the new Under Armour cut, the equipment staff sold off the rest of their stock of unused player numbers from 2010 and sure enough there were two jerseys of each color for every unused number.The player might have already been wearing his backup jersey (he’s a defensive linemen, so it’s not unusual to think his jersey’s get banged up). If that was the case, they needed to fix it it on the spot because from my understanding of what happened, his number would have been obscured had they not.

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