Sunday Morning Uni Watch

By Phil Hecken

Week 11 of the NCAA football season was a relatively quiet one, uniform-wise, but of course, there were a few special unis and helmets gracing the field yesterday. And as I alluded to in yesterday’s post — the anthracite-and-copper costume Arizona State broke out was one of those. I was fearing it might not look as good on the field and under the bright Arizona sun as it looked in Nike’s studio shots — but I was wrong. It was beautiful. And Notre Dame, clad in their “regular” road uniform of gold/white/gold, looked great as their opponents. I’m not sure if the game will catch the eye of our 5 & 1 gal, Catherine Ryan, but I sure loved it.

Here’s how those ASUnis looked yesterday (click to enlarge):

The gray anthracite (for anthracite’s sake) looked dee-vine under the sun and the copper in the helmets was a beautiful compliment. That’s just my opinion of course. It’d sure be nice if they wear these again (and after the ass-whoompin’ they put on Notre Dame, it’s possible — although I think ASU’s stated goal is to never wear the same uni-combo twice this season). We’ll see. If not this year, then I hope they bring them back next season.

OK — now for the rest of your Sunday Morning wrap, here’s TJ:

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet

So earlier on Saturday, I stopped by a pizza place, dug the prices they were offering, and got myself 3 pizzas. When my order came up, they had a cancelled order for a large pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese, and asked if I wanted it. Me being the greedy cretin that I am, I say “yes”, and went home with 4 pizzas (three large, one medium) for the price of 3. Why do I mention this? Because today’s column is a lot thinner than my stomach at the moment.

From Wednesday:

• Kudos to NIU for wearing a road uniform that didn’t make this look like an Spring game.

From Thursday:

• I don’t think we’ve seen these gold chrome helmets before for Wake Forest, but I could be wrong.

From Saturday:

• Houston wore throwbacks against Tulane.

• Oklahoma wore their alternate home uniforms against Baylor, and let me just say, I very much prefer these over the road versions. I dig those numbers more and more every time I see them.

• Still can’t get enough of those red helmets for Wisconsin.

• Fear the spear? Uh… not so much when it’s lookin’ like this.

• Hey, how ’bout that TechFit technology?

• Army wore all-black with camo numerals and camo decals on the helmets.

• Has Ole Miss ever worn navy/red/navy before?

• Utah in black/black/red against Oregon. Also, GG, Kaelin Clay.

• Some notes from the LSU/Alabama game (apart from looking miraculous, as always): this man painted tiger stripes on his dog. Also,the footage is grainy, but this is, what, the 4th wrecked facemask of the season? That Vine also shows an LSU player attempting to pull the pants off of a Bama player.

• And then there are the quillions of teams who wore some type of military-honoring deal over the weekend, including (but not limited to): Purdue, Minnesota, Tulsa, and Washington, but the TCU band apparently hates America… and apparently have yet to turn their calendars over to the next month.

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Thanks, TJ!

Catherine Ryan’s 5 & 1

Every Sunday, Catherine will give us the rundown of her best five and one worst uniform matchups from the College Football games played this week. Since it’s practically impossible to watch every game, you guys can help by sending your thoughts on “good” and “bad” matchups (and hopefully with photos from that game) by e-mailing her at UW5and1@gmail.com.

OK, here’s Catherine with this week’s 5 & 1.

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5. Hawaii vs. Colorado State: This match-up is a little nontraditional for me but I actually thought it looked good. I figured I would spread the 5-and-1 love around.

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4. Iowa vs. Minnesota: I got both positive and negative reviews of this game. Minny crushed Iowa to take home the Floyd of Rosedale trophy. Iowa was in their classic road unis while the Gophers sported an awful alternate helmet decal, which thankfully wasn’t enough to ruin this match-up for me.

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3. UNLV vs. Air Force: I loved the contrast between the teams in this match-up. UNLV looked great in the gray-red-gray combo while Air Force kept it simple.

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2. Baylor vs. Oklahoma: I loved the Bears in their green pants on the road and I thought the Sooners’ alternates were gorgeous.

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1. Alabama vs. LSU: This one was going to be hard to beat and for good reason.

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+1 Kentucky vs. Georgia: It hurts me to put Georgia here but these Kentucky unis are atrocious. Admittedly, it’s not nearly as offensive as some of the other +1’s we’ve had this year but, short of me putting every bit of camo that was trotted out yesterday up here, this was the best I could do.

+1 (dis)Honorable Mention: Colorado vs. Arizona

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Thanks, Catherine! I pretty much knew before I even looked at this list what the #1 good would be! It’s pretty much a “good #1” lock every year.

OK readers, how’d she do?

Duck Tracker

Each week, as we have done on Uni Watch for the past five seasons, we’ll be tracking the uniform combinations of the Oregon Ducks. Back for his third season is Tim E. O’Brien, who’ll show you what the Ducks wore in their last game, and add a few words of wisdom.

Here’s this weeks costume (click to enlarge):

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Here’s Tim:

Oregon decided to wear their yellow helmets, old template white jerseys and their yellow pants. When’s the last time we saw that combo? 366 days prior!

Oregon needs a new uniform set…

Premier League Games
By Andrew Seagraves

We are getting close to the midway point of the UWFFL Premier league season as the band of twelve are fighting for the final six spots to see who has what it takes to take home Gold and Glory in the UWFFL Bowl. The Premier League is joining their Division II and La Lega counterparts in observing Armistice/Remembrance Day with different forms of tribute to our Veterans.

The Eastern Division will be battling each other while the Central and West will pay each other a visit this week. Our featured fracas for the Top Flight will be a battle of old and new blood as the Texas Timberwolves venture to America’s Last Frontier to take on the Anchorage Orcas. The Central Division T-Wolves underwent a rebrand this season traded their traditional Green and White for electric blue, magenta and white. This week, they’ll forgo their new colors for their Old Glory getup as they add the Stars and Stripes to their numbers, pants and jerseys. The Western Division Anchorage Orcas, the New Blood in this battle, will take a page from Alaska’s war effort past as they will wear tribute uniforms for the Alaska Clippers and the Eleventh Air Force stationed at Elmendorf-Richardson Air Base. The Alaska Clippers were a gridiron squad formed by Army Air Corpsmen of the Eleventh Air Force which was apart of the Northwest Staging area of the US Air Transport Command stationed in Edmonton, Alberta in World War II. During their brief stint as a team they played the University of Idaho Navy V-12 unit, Nevada-Reno and the Great Falls Bombers going winless in all three games. Despite their short time together, the Clippers joined the ranks of other Armed Forces squads who played in Intercollegiate and Inter-Service competition across the globe.

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Texas

Anchorage

 

pollcode.com free polls

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Other marquee matchups will include the Birmingham Vulcans heading to the Port of Hartford to take on the Whalers, the San Diego Storm will break out their Fourth Air Force ”“ March Field Flyers ”“ Football Uniforms as they square off against the Detroit Demons and Minnesota will face San Francisco in the Fire Pit.

La Lega will continue their interleague play with Division Two this week and a few intriguing matchups will have the Tokyo Mammoth hosting the Montreal Machine, Crown Royal heading to the Palmetto State to face the Carolina Krescents, and Kansas City will head to the UAE to take on the Abu Dhabi Pearlers.

Remember to make your voice heard by heading over to uwfantasyfootballleague.com to vote on which squad squares your circle this week. Don’t forget to get your friends, family, and possibly long forgotten acquaintances to vote as well! For those of you who want to try your hand at competition in the UWFFL, get on over to our Prospective UWFFL Teams Google+ page to share your vision with the rest of the class”¦ and don’t forget the gum this time. We will see you next week!

EPL Tracker

Each Saturday or Sunday, Alex Gerwitz will be tracking the kit combinations (shirt/shorts/socks) of the teams in the English Premier League from the previous weekend and the current weekend.

Here is the EPL tracker for Weeks 10 & 11 (click to enlarge):

Uni Watch News Ticker:

Baseball News: “I read this article on MLB.com and found it interesting that two of the players (Capuano & Morales) are listed as Free Agents,” says Chris Workman. “Typically, the MLB Stars wear their team uniform for the Japan series, and they seem to be following suit this season from pictures I have seen. Do you have any idea how this has been handled in the past? I am anxious to see what uniforms they wear (previous team, generic MLB uniform, blank jersey?) It feels similar to Jeff Samardzija’s situation in the All-Star Game.” … In this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “A Piece of Forbes Field Goes Up for Auction, the photo, when enlarged, shows the “PAC” wreaths (thanks Jerry Wolper). … According to Dan Ullsperger the Lids website offers a “Brian Braun” throwback jersey. Perhaps the Hebrew Hammer has a brother?

NFL News: “Looks like Nike is trying to push the Pro Combat style jersey on the newest generation of Packer fans,” writes Jamie Burditt). Now, if they can just push it on the Pack. … ICYMI: The Cowboys will be wearing a poppy decal on their helmets for today’s game in London. Expecting the Jags to do likewise. … Andrew McDonald of the Seahawks “wore this all week” in “honor of my father @SAMcD_33 who served in the late 80s.” … Are the NFL replays sponsored by Surface? Never saw this before. … Did Billy Sims’ in his rookie year of 1980 have a different helmet logo than his teammates? Kurt Rozek thinks so. He adds, “Their logos were outlined in white, while his appears to have no outline with the lion’s tail at a different angle.”

College & High School Football News: Great article and graphic in The New York Times which highlights where in America college football is most popular. Should we be surprised that it’s Alabama? (thanks, Paul). … Southern University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge went BFBS in its game Friday. The gray pants are also NOT a school color. The school’s official colors are green and yellow (thanks to David Steinle). … Reader Parker Martin went by the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta Saturday morning and found some very interesting uniform/apparel inclusions. He explains: “First up is Under Armor’s apparent sponsorship of the uniform portion of the museum. Evidently ‘performance wear’ is important to college football’s uniform history and looks even more out of place when juxtaposed with a historic jersey dating back to the early 20th century. Later in the exhibit, is a plaque explaining the ‘new styles’ of college football uniforms especially the recent use of camouflage ‘as a means of tribute to our men and women in the armed forces.‘ Finally, the uniform displayed to represent modern football is of course Maryland’s pride uniform. It was separate from the historical uniforms but I tried to frame the picture so viewers can see the style differences. Something else to note in that picture is the old Georgia uniform (#62 in the picture) which seems to be a grown-up onesie. I’ve never seen that type of uniform top before and am not sure how long those remained in style.” … An LSU fan has painted tiger stripes on his dog (or at least, I hope that’s his dog). More here.

NBA News: “Color vs. ‘not’ color” in Denver: The Cavs wore white on the road while the Nuggets wore their yellow skyline jerseys on Friday night, notes Ron Ruelle. “Could have been a color vs color game.” … The San Antonio Spurs broke out their military camo unis last night. Ugh. Not only are they camo, they’re sleeved camo. Just awful.

Hockey News: On Friday night, the Ohio State University Buckeye hockey team wore camo unis with service branch NOBs. … Last night, the B-Sens wore camo sweaters to honor the military (h/t Joe MacQuarrie). … Also last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs wore poppy helmet decals (h/t Kyle Douglas). So did the refs (via John M.) Here’s another shot of the Leafs (also from John M.). … Must be a Canadian team thing because the Senators and Jets had them also. … The Sabres held their military appreciation night last evening and warmed up in these camo tops (via Jason Tyx). … But those guys have nothing on the Portland Pirates, who played a game wearing these flag desecration numbers (h/t Nick Griffin). … Wishful thinking or WTF? … Last evening, the Canadiens retired Guy Lapointe’s number, all the Habs wore his sweater during the pre-game ceremony (thanks to Matt Larsen). Also in honor of Guy Lapointe, the number 5 on the ice behind the nets (both ends) and a patch on the Habs’ sweaters (also from Matt). … The Cincinnati Cyclones are set up to wear a bunch of novelty sweaters this year. … Dan Ullsperger thinks the Guy LaFleur statue looks like Bill Murray.

Soccer News: It has been reported by Soccer AM in England that AFC Bournemouth have added a moustache to their badge for Movember. Full details can be found here (thanks to Tony Dobson). … In yesterday’s action, Diego Costa suffered a pretty large rip in his shirt (h/t SoccerGods). Here’s a better view (submitted by Jean Labbe).

Grab Bag: There is a TON of interesting uni-related things where you would least expect: in this Big Sean music video, notes Jeremy Baker. “Some things of note: 1) color-on-color football game, 2) taped-over nose bumpers, 3) digitally blurred out nose-bumpers, 4) Adidas’ trademark treadmark, 5) An unidentifiable pattern on the black team’s pants (digi-camo at first blush, but at ~1:43 you can see that is is something else entirely–is Adidas trying to introduce us to their new thing, a la March Madness fruit stripes?), and 6) the QB (Big Sean, natch) wearing #88 (Big Sean’s birth year, natch).” … Just in time for the holidays, Loudmouth Golf has released Santa jackets and pants. Want.

And that will do it for today folks. Thanks to Terry, Tim, Catherine, Andrew, Alex and everyone else who contributed to the ticker or tweeted at me.

Today, Paul and I will be taking our first curling class in beautiful Lakeside Park in Brooklyn. It should be a good time, and I hope I don’t end up spending more time on my ass than my feet. Paul, if you weren’t aware, got quite good at the sport of kings — me? Not so much. Wish us luck today! Witness the good (top) and the bad (bottom) — hopefully Paul won’t have any videos of me on my brains on Monday. Enjoy:

Don’t forget — the Cowboys take over London today. And lots of camo Salute to Service crap as well. Welcome to GIJoevember for real.

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken

Peace.

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“My secret uni fetish has to be without doubt the neon green Orlando Thunder home jersey. I finally managed to get my hands on one this year after 19 years of trying!”

–Stephen Rigby