Sunday Morning Uni Watch

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By Phil Hecken

Well — the 2015 NCAA Football season is winding down, which means week 13 features many traditional end-of-season rivalry games, trophy games, and just some plain end games. But, as we have every year since 2008, when the USC/UCLA rivalry went back to color-vs-color (with the lone exception of 2011, when UCLA inexplicably wore white over white), we are treated to the best looking college football game of the year. Even with UCLA introducing this piece of crap — the UCLA/USC game still looked great. Some color vs. color games work better than others, but this one will stand the test of time, even if past editions of the game have looked even better.

But this was just one of many great looking games yesterday. There were also a couple of surprises as well. So to bring you up to speed on Week 13, I’ll now turn this over to my right-hand-man, TJ Duroncelet, who will bring you your …

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family, friends, food, and fire from the inevitable shade that was thrown by family members left and right. For those who no longer look like they’re two months pregnant from all of the festivities, let’s have a look at the aesthetic happenings from Week 13 of the 2015 college football season, also known as Rivalry Week. RI-VAL-RY. I’ll grant you a mulligan on the enunciation if you’re still feeling the effects of Thursday’s Maker’s Mark.

From Friday:

• Oregon wore *someone off in the distance* “Something!” Well, I guess that can best describe Oregon these days. I am disappointed that Oregon State chose not to make this a color-vs-color game, but the general theme for this week was keep it *relatively* simple. Not many teams wore something totally-oddball, including the white-clad Beavers. Also, some interesting notes regarding the helmet stripes for both teams: Kyle Peko for Oregon State looks to have lost some black in his stripe, but underneath is orange (h/t JB Johnson. Why not make one solid piece with all three stripes integrated in, like a regular decal? I’ll be honest in saying that I don’t fully understand how helmet stripes work in regards to today’s helmets, so some teams might use a different process than others. And the ends of the flying duck’s wings on Oregon’s helmet stripes seem to blouse over the concussion panel (not the biggest photo I could find, but it should hopefully be evident enough), as opposed to being cut to accommodate for its flexing ability the way other teams do.

• Mizzou and Repu– okay, that joke was already used. Mizzou and Arkansas partook in a color-vs-color game, just like last year. From Seth Shaw: “Arkansas and Missouri went color vs. color for the second straight year on Friday. This is probably because the schools are desperately trying to turn this into a rivalry even though they have only met 7 times in history. The huge trophy even changes depending on who wins.”.

From Saturday:

• Blame Spanks for sending me this: Indiana wore some getup that totally gave first priority to the school and put no focus on the maker of said getup against Purdue.

• Virginia Tech wore these throwback helmets in their win against Virginia in Beamer’s final road game. I wonder what they have in store for his final bowl game in a few weeks…

• Nothing groundbreaking, but let’s all take a moment to appreciate the stellar contrast between UNC and NC State.

• I HORRIBLY neglected to mention that Rutgers wore their previous uniform design against Kansas way back in Week 4. They brought ’em out a second time for yesterday’s game against Maryland (the two “fresh meat” members of the B1G). I love this move, for two reasons: 1) it gives us a break from the “SUUUUUUUPER KNIIIIIIIIGHTS” look that they normally wear, and 2) the graduating Class of 2015 elected to wear these, as they started out in those uniforms, and haven’t worn them since the change of 2012, until earlier this season and then yesterday. Kinda like Jeff Gordon closing out his career in the classic rainbow scheme from when I would catch the occasional race back in the 90s, the age when the thought of French Toast Crunch going away for any stretch of time was treasonous, and all I was concerned with was if Cow & Chicken were getting their daily supply of pork butts and taters. Good on the seniors for their decision.

• Speaking of blasts from the past, South Carolina wore this helmet design, a look they haven’t worn since the 90s (I think 1998 was the last time it was worn, but I could be wrong), with mono-garnet uniforms for an all-garnet look. Also from that same game, Clemson in orange/white/orange is a woefully-underrated look for the Other Orange Tigers.

• Texas A&M was one of the few teams alongside Indiana to partake in major tomfoolery by wearing some all-black getup (I think these are the Halloween unis) against LSU.

• If there was a Heisman Trophy for graphics teams, who do you think would win?

• Florida wore white/blue/white and did the mismatched helmet decal thing. Also, this (screenshot for prosperity in case they delete the original tweet).

• Rare FNOB sighting in Knoxville, with thanks to Benji King (@benjiking).

• The Oklahoma/Oklahoma St. game got a little chippy.

And that’ll do it for Week 13. See you all next week.

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Thanks, TJ! OK, now on to the rest of your SMUW.

NCAA Uni Tracking

Back again today with our final full week of Uniform Tracking.

Once again, I’m pleased to welcome our 3 NCAA trackers, tallying the uniforms worn by 4 of the Power 5 conferences.

We’ve got Rex Henry (tracking the ACC & SEC), Dennis Bolt (tracking the PAC-12), and Kyle Acker (tracking the Big XII). Unfortunately, it looks like our B1G tracker has fallen off the face of the earth, for which I apologize. Repeated attempts to contact him have failed, so again, it’s the PAC-12, ACC, Big XII and SEC.

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Rex is up first today:

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ACC

More Here.
And here are your Year-To-Date Totals

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SEC

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And now, here’s Dennis with the PAC-12:

PAC-12

More here.

Here is your link to the 2015-16 Duck Tracker.

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And finally, here is Kyle with the Big XII:

Big XII

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And that’s all for today — thanks Rex, Dennis and Kyle!

Joe Ringham’s 5 & 1

We’re on to week 13 in the NCAA, featuring some great rivalry games and a bunch of other interesting matchups. So there should be lots of fodder for 5 & 1 decider Joe Ringham.

You may not agree with him, (I rarely agreed with Jimmer Vilk and only occasionally with Catherine), but he’s got his reasons for his picks.

Here’s Joe:

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Good Sunday, everyone! I hope everyone had a fine Thanksgiving, and enjoyed this Rivalry Weekend. This is probably my favorite weekend of the college football season, with all the rivalries finishing the regular season. So many good looking match-ups that I had to make a little tweak to this week’s list…

Games disqualified from the list for being too damn good looking but still worthy of recognizing (aka the “Too Sexy” List) – Georgia at Georgia Tech, Florida State at Florida, Alabama at Auburn, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State, Iowa at Nebraska, UCLA at USC, Ohio State at Michigan

Ok, now that I got that out of the way and recognized those games, in my own unique way, on to this weeks list…

5) Navy at Houston — Saw this one on Friday and it immediately caught my attention. Loved how great the Middies looked in their road gold/white/navy, and it looked rather sharp against the Cougars white/red/red home look.

4) Notre Dame at Stanford — A huge step up from last week for the Irish, going back to their traditional road unis. Match that up against the Cardinal’s always sharp home set and you’ve got a great looking game on The Farm to close out the regular season for these two.

3) Louisville at Kentucky — The battle for the Governor’s Cup looked impressively sharp. One of the Cardinals’ better looks all season, going mono white with red sleeves. And the ‘Cats looked equally as sharp in blue/gray/blue.

2) Missouri at Arkansas — As soon as I saw this game, while channel surfing on Friday, I knew this was an automatic lock for the list this week. Always a fan of Arkansas’ usual home red/red/white set. But it matched up perfectly, to me, with Mizzou going black/black/yellow. A surprise color vs. color match-up to end the season.

1) North Carolina at North Carolina State — Outside of the “Too Sexy” List, this was definitely my favorite looking match-up of the day. Really loved how Carolina’s blue/white/blue just stood out perfectly against the Wolfpack’s red/red/white home set today, and vice versa. Just a strong looking game across the board.

And, finally…

+1) Boston College vs Syracuse — The Orange really lived up to their name today. Man, did they not look pretty though.

Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll see you next week for Conference Championship Saturday!

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Thanks, Joe! Remember, the tip-line email (UW5and1@gmail.com) is back for any games you want Joe take a look at. Pictures of the game/games you want are very much suggested.

Uni Watch News Ticker

Baseball News: “Just saw this Stu Miller card with an odd ‘SF’ on the cap,” writes Leo Strawn, Jr.. “Have never seen this design before. He was in the Cardinals farm system and also played in the Giants system, but they were still in New York then, so it doesn’t seem to fit with any minor league teams and Okkonen doesn’t show this cap in his uniform database.” … Ethan Novak found this awesome Negro League dress (or long tank?) in a local antique store. Sweet. … The Arizona Diamondbacks will reveal their new 2016 uniforms next Saturday. Be prepared to declare these the worst unis in baseball.

Football News: “Wilcox HS in Santa Clara wears gradient numbers that go from gray to yellow,” says Ethan Kassel. “I’m normally against gradient numbers, but it’s not a bad look on them. I did notice something interesting: #30 (Francis Arellano) had his 0 upside-down. These photos are from Friday’s playoff game at St. Francis in Mountain View.” … The Canadian university championship was yesterday. Mike Styczen notes the referee has an Under Armour branded flip-up cheat sheet on his left arm. “I’ve never seen that before. What information does a referee need on his arm? Genuinely curious.” … Ooops. Gotta love the Syracuse Tigers (from Travis Nardella). … Here’s a great old (1918) OSU/UM poster (from Todd Radom).

Hockey News: The Peoria Rivermen will wear these pretty amazing awful KISS sweaters on March 4. … To celebrate their 50th year in the NHL, it looks like the Los Angeles Kings will be planning a multitude of events, including the introduction of a new sweater (h/t Bizbo).

Soccer News: “Perusing the website for my kid’s Thankgsiving weekend soccer tournament, I found a bunch of interesting turkey-related soccer logos,” says Andy Zare. They’re at the bottom of the page.

Grab Bag: “I was at the GWB presidential library in Dallas over the weekend and noticed some uni related memorabilia from his presidency,” says Greg Stamps. There was some Rangers boots, what looks like a bronze football, and a cycling jersey. “As a Rangers fan I dig the boots but my favorite has to be the bike shirt with lariat font,” he adds. … Both Mike Engle and Lindsay received their new Uni Watch Ugly X-mas sweat shirts. Looks good!

And that’s all for today. Thanks to TJ, Rex, Kyle, Joe and Dennis for their contributions. Everyone have a great Sunday and I’ll catch you next weekend. Paul is back from his much-deserved vacation, and he’ll be back with Monday Morning Uni Watch and a full slate of stuff this week!

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

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“‘Color Rush’ sounds forced and unnatural to me. (I see that thousands of non-NFL hits return for ‘Color Rush’ searches, but I’d never heard that term before.) ‘Color Rash’ sounds far more appropriate. Anyhow, Uni-Watch wouldn’t be good-old enjoyable Uni-Watch without ‘Color Rash,’ ‘Pandering,’ ‘Black For Black’s Sake,’ etc.”

— Rob Yaz