Sunday Morning Uni Watch

By Phil Hecken & The SMUW Crew

Lots of special looks and costumes yesterday — including the 100 year 1916 “throwback” sported by The Ohio State University. If the score of their game against Nebraska were any indication of the awesomeness of the uniform, then it was a success. As it is, it was just another costume. I watched a good chunk of the game, and I liked it (it was about all the football I got to watch yesterday, as I had a very rare “work” day — such is life when you work for an elected official who is on the ballot on Tuesday). Luckily, I missed much of the other black-flag inspired unis (there were two of those) and a bunch of gray-for-gray’s-sake anthracite hats and unis as well. Clearly gray is the new black. Thankfully there are 25 hours in this day. I will need every one of them.

Here’s TJ with your…

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet, Jr.

Holy hell, I think this has been the busiest weekend in a few weeks. Let’s go by, one at a time…

From Thursday:

• Iowa State wore all-cardinal against Oklahoma. And as you can see on the back of the helmets (closer look), they wore memorial decals in honor of the Iowa police officers who were recently slain. The Iowa Hawkeyes, UNI, and most likely several other schools in the State have done the same/similar in response.

From Friday:

• Despite baseball season being over, UConn felt it necessary to wear their greys at home… against Temple… who wore white. FFS Huskies, just because it works in one sport, doesn’t mean it works in all sports.

• Not the best quality image, but San Jose State wore some snazzy new gold helmets against Boise State.

From Saturday:

• In the wake of G.I. Joevember, it’s nice to see two of the academies in their normal uniforms. An absolutely FANTASTIC-looking game.

• Another great-looking game from Saturday: Illinois vs. Michigan State. Are you taking notes, UConn? Also, Illinois’s Special Teams unit game Michigan State an orange jersey with Mile Sadler’s name and number on it, as well as multiple autographs.

• While we’re at it, someone needs to give Northwestern a crash course in uni contrast, as well. Okay, that’s actually not a horrible look for them in a vacuum… but against a white-clad Wisconsin team? Yeesh. Also, marching bands do it better, as always (with credit to Adam Hoge for the original video).

• Republican Kansas wore anthracite uniforms for the first time since 2013, albeit in the current template. Also worn in that same game for the first time since 2013: Florida in white-over-blue, but it honestly seems like a common combination for them, so I honestly wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t posted about it.

• Mississippi State wore… these.

• ATX Progress on Twitter writes: “Navy players honoring Roger Staubach’s personal balance sheet“.

• Clemson wore mono-purple against a not-so-orange Syracuse Orange team for Military Appreciation Day. Personally, I like Clemson’s purps, because it’s a refreshing change from camouflage-this, Old Glory-that, blah-blah WHYDOYOUHATEAMERICAYOUFUCKINGCOMMIE, and it actually ties in to their history. That being said, if I had to make a tweak, I would spring for matching purple helmets.

• Okay, is this Baseball Week or something? Maybe it’s because the World Series finished up this week, and Baseball is considered the National Pastime of the U.S., which just so happens to tie into November. Or perhaps they’re trying to channel their inner Autumn weather, because Celestia knows when we’ll have stable Fall weather again, what with global warming ‘n’ all. They originally debuted these against Syracuse last year, camo helmets and everything.

• Speaking of which, Kansas State wore white camo helmets for Fort Riley Day against Oklahoma State. It would’ve been nice to see some white pants to give the uniform a sense of balance.

• Several other teams wore various G.I. Joevember displays, including (but not limited to): Louisiana-Monroe (digi-camo decals), Cincinnati (#96), New Mexico, and probably many, many others, but one of the cooler moves (referencing the Bearcats again) is a player from Cincinnati and BYU exchanged cleats after the game.

• After a few weeks of teasing, Duke finally wore their Battleship Grey helmets (with corresponding patches). Full gallery here.

• Several teams in the American Athletic Conference wore ‘P6’ decals (stands for Power 6), as a conference-wide initiative to be recognized with the same weight as the current Power 5 conferences (ACC, B1G, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC).

• While we’re on the subject, that decal shot was from the back of a Tulane helmet, which was part of this uniform that they wore against UCF, who embodied their Knights team name. Another looker from Week 10.

• Tulsa wore Alzheimer’s Awareness ribbon decals (sans apostrophe). This also gives us another shot of the P6 decal.

• Baylor coach Art Briles is, well, no longer Baylor’s coach. He was given the Les Miles a long way’s back actually, and Baylor decided to wear all-black against TCU over the weekend, with many speculating that it could be in protest of his firing. Heeeeeeere’s the problem with doing that… now, after this tweet (here’s the screenshot in case the tweet gets deleted) by one of the Baylor players went *fairly* viral, the higher-ups immediately came out to say that the black was actually in response to their rivalry game against TCU.

• Right before the tOSU/NEB tilt, Ohio State gave Nebraska a helmet with 27 Buckeye leaves, in honor of Sam Foltz (his uni number was 27), and THE also wore their very-cool 1916/1917 fauxback uniforms (chalk me up as a fan!), but what you may not know is that they also wore these decals in honor of John Hicks, who passed away on October 29th. If you want to know the backstory behind these duds, reference Phil’s column that he did yesterday. A+ from me, even if the hats were a little dark.

• One thing I noticed in this promo for the LSU/Alabama game is that the uniform depicted here is a little inaccurate: there’s a gold stroke around the purple number (hard to see, but it’s there), even though they don’t wear that in real life. Then there’s the striped socks, which I wouldn’t mind seeing LSU start wearing.

*whew* And that should do it for Week 10. This is the month where the games become weightier, as we all do after Thanksgiving, but that ain’t for a few weeks. Hope you enjoyed this week’s offerings, and I’ll see you next week.

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Thanks, TJ! OK, now for the rest of your SMUW…

Joe Ringham’s 5 & 1

Following in the footsteps of the original “5 & 1,” Jim Vilk, and Catherine Ryan after him, Joe Ringham is back for 2016 to make his “5 & 1” (five good looking and one stinker) uni-vs-uni matchups. Sometimes he’ll have some “honorable mentions” and sometimes there will be more than one “bad” game. You may agree and you may disagree — these are, after all, just opinions and everyone has one. Feel free to let him know what you think in the comments section.

Here’s Joe:

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Good Sunday, everyone! Another week of games has come and gone and, yet again, another fantastic looking week. So, let’s see who made the cut… and see if you can sense a bit of a theme this week.

5) Central Michigan at Miami (OH) — Now that we’ve hit November, we get mid-week MAC-tion (even though this was on a Friday night). The Chips look really good in their yellow/white/yellow on the road. You match that up against the red/mono-grey the Redhawks brought out at home, and you have yourself a very good-looking game for the first Friday in November.

4) Bowling Green at Northern Illinois — A little Tuesday night MAC-tion that looked extra sharp. Absolutely loved the Huskies black/red/black home set, which I personally think is their best looking set out of all their uni combinations. Add in the contrasting orange/white/orange road set the Falcons brought out and you have one fine looking game.

3) Louisiana Tech at North Texas — This game had me thinking about Christmas, with the colors brought out. The aptly named Mean Green looked fantastic in white/mono-green at home. Match that up against Tech’s red/white/red and you can see why my thoughts started to drift towards Christmas in the beginning of November.

2) Air Force at Army — All of our football-playing service academies always have great looking uniforms. So it’s no surprise that this game is on the list for this week. No other explanation needed.

1) Fresno State at Colorado State — Much like number 3 on the list, this match-up brings the upcoming holiday season to mind. Love the Bulldogs’ red/white/red road look for this one, so much so that I’ll look past the not-so-good looking center helmet stripe. I also really like the Rams’ green/green/white home look in this one. An incredibly sharp looking game in Fort Collins.

And, finally…

+1) Texas State at Appalachian State — Once again, why teams with yellow as one of their colors go mono-yellow (including the shoes) is beyond me. It just looks completely atrocious.

Welcome to the 2016 Oregon Ducks Uni Tracker. This little project was originally begun way back in 2008-09 by Michael Princip, who retired after several seasons, whereupon the project was continued by Tim E. O’Brien. He, too, retired from the tracking, but the project has been ably kept up by the man who also tracks the Pac12, Dennis Bolt.

Here’s this week’s Uniform Combo for the Ducks (you can click to enlarge):

You can read about this uniform, and MUCH MORE, by checking out the Duck Tracker here!

NCAA Uni Tracking

Uni Watch will again track the uniform combinations worn by the “Power 5” conferences. Most of the 2015 trackers are back, with one new tracker added:

We’ve got Rex Henry (tracking the ACC), Dennis Bolt (tracking the PAC-12), Kyle Acker (tracking the Big XII), Davis Vinckier (tracking the B1G), and Ethan Dimitroff, (tracking the SEC). Rex, Dennis, and Kyle and are all returning from 2015, and Ethan is new to the NCAA Uni Tracking this season. Unfortunately, Davis has run into some difficulties and won’t be able to continue with tracking of the B1G for the remainder of the season. Fortunately, Rex (today) and Ethan (next week through the end of the season) have stepped up and will do the B1G tracking from here through the bowls.

Here are the Uni Trackers for WEEK TEN of the NCAA Season.

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Rex is up first today (ACC):

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ACC

More Here.
Follow Rex on Twitter here.

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

PAC-12

More here.

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And here is Ethan, with the SEC:

SEC

And be sure to check out Ethan’s WVU Mountaineer Tracker.

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And here is Kyle with the Big XII:

Big XII

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And here’s Rex with the B1G:

B1G
*Note: Rex adds: “Please excuse the crudity of this model. I didn’t have time to build it to scale or paint it.”* [It should be noted also that Rex didn’t get started on creating this tracker until VERY late last night, as I didn’t hear from Davis until last evening. I asked my trackers if any of them might be willing to take over the B1G Tracking beginning next week, but Rex offered to try to “throw” something together so we’d have a tracker today. On such short notice, he did a great job! — PH]

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Your semi-annual Uni Watch reminder…

Most of us have products (PCs, phones, digital video recorders, etc.) that update to the return to standard time automatically, but there are those of us who still have some things (watches, alarm clocks, car stereo systems, etc.) that don’t. So, if you didn’t yet turn your clocks back an hour…

do it now. And check the batteries in your smoke detector, while you’re at it!

Uni Watch News Ticker
By Phil

Baseball News: Here’s a very good article on Baseball Digest about the power of baseball branding, particularly in light of the recent renaming/branding of several MiLB teams (from Jason Hillyer). … “In August, Warren Cromartie spoke to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. He talked about his efforts to bring Major League Baseball back to Montreal, about about his intention to be involved with Japan’s baseball team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and about his desire to return to live in Tokyo, where he played for the Yomiuri Giants for quite a few years,” says Fernando Cesarano. “During his speech, he first wore an Expos cap, and then a Yomiuri Giants cap. After that, he sat for questions in between the two caps.” You can watch the video here. … Following the World Series, Cubs Skip Joe Maddon wore an old Anaheim Angels cap during an interview (from Allen Y). You can check out the interview here. … Whoa, check out this photo of Larry Bird in an Indiana State baseball uniform (from Eric Spoonmore). … Mariners president Kevin Martinez suggested the team may be doing a “Turn Ahead the Clock” night and asked the masses if they want to see the original “Turn Ahead” uniforms from the Griffey era or new ones (from Andy Greenberg). … Great spot from Steve Dodell who notes that in the 1969 World Series, the Orioles bat boy went FullNOB.

NFL News: The NFL didn’t get the nickname “No Fun League” for no reason. With that in mind, Willard Kovacs wonders whether the league would have an issue with this tee shirt John Elway is sporting from his playing days. … Interesting article on how the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders “uniforms” came to be iconic. … We’ve probably seen this before, but once more can’t hurt: here’s Russ Washington of the Chargers with a DDNOB (Double Decker NOB), from John Turney. … The logo for Washington’s new Arena Football League team is on a sign in the Verizon Center store (from John Cannon).

Hockey News: “Is there a ‘unofficial uniwatch record’ for most patches used by a single team at once?” reader Aaron Husul asks, “Next season is: the Ottawa Senators’ 25th; 100 years since Ottawa’s first Senators started in the NHL; the 100th Anniversary of the NHL; the Province of Ontario’s 150th birthday; (and) Canada’s 150th birthday.” … The Brandon Wheat Kings wore throwbacks Friday night. Wade Heidt explains these are from the late 1980s to the early aughts. “I like the jersey design better than their present design” he adds. “The present day design is still suffering from the Reebok Edge hangover.” … The Plattsburgh State Cardinals wore these Hodgkin Lymphoma jerseys Saturday night vs Canton, which wereauctioned off after the game supporting “Matty Strong” night (h/t Steven Mills). … Here is a look at some camopander unis for the AHL’s Roadrunners (from Adam Vitcavage). … The Senators will wear Stick By Nik decals as tribute to Nicholle Anderson (h/t TWF). … “The Rochester Americans did a Military Appreciation Night on the 4th,” says Jim Wasko. “The jerseys were full military camo with military style names-on-front which I found to be unique. I was at the game. The pictures look better than how they looked in person since the silver numbers and NOBs were hard to read. It was a very ‘Americana’ look since it was paired with the Amerks normal red, white and blue pants and helmets.” … The Washington Capitals wore their Hockey Fights Cancer jerseys before Saturday’s game against Florida (from John Cannon). … Reader Jim Wooley sends in this photo of Phil Esposito wearing a huge patch Jim haven’t seen before. “Perhaps you have but I thought it was interesting that 1) It’s so huge and 2) It’s on the chest instead of the shoulder,” he adds.

NBA News: The Philadelphia 76ers wore these throwback unis last night — notice the attempt to replicate the satin shorts of the day. They also played on a throwback court (from THOM D and Robert Hayes. … From the NBA Store (via Conrad Burry), here are a couple different looks at this year’s NBA X-mas day jerseys. … The Dallas Mavericks will publicly honor Dr. Jose R. Zambrano w/a “JRZ” patch at today’s game vs Bucks (h/t Mike Chamernik). … The Philadelphia 76ers announced Saturday they have invited Sevyn Streeter back to sing the national anthem. She’ll do so while wearing a “We Matter” jersey. … All you fans of zero rejoice: last night there were two number 0s and a number 00 on the floor at the same time in Pacers vs. Bulls (nice grab by Josh Rawdin).

College Hoops News: Tweeter Mark Majewski is a big fan of Boston College’s unis, and he likes the shorts better than the jerseys. … The Cincinnati Bearcats womens’ team has new red uniforms (from Nick). … With college basketball around the corner, Texas has a “Horns in NBA” plaque, changed NBA color scheme to burnt orange/white (from Griffin Smith).

Grab Bag: Yesterday, Wembley Stadium hosted rugby union international, but still has a part-faded Bengals logo at midfield from last week’s NFL game between the Bengals and ‘skins (from TheLupineOne). … The Northern Territory Thunder women’s Australian rules team wear their jumpers inside-out when the squad split into teams during training sessions (from Graham Clayton).

And that’s all for today. Thanks as always to the entire SMUW crew, and to Rex & Ethan for stepping up big-time. Please be sure to always give these guys props & thanks — all the crew! They are the best. HUGE HUGE thanks to Rex for taking over the B1G at literally no notice!

My brutal sked continues for two more days (thankfully I have an Island Oasis in curling, which begins tonight — and with Paul all healed up and rejoining our squad!). Everyone remember to vote on Tuesday, it may be the most important civic duty you can do. And you surely can’t bitch about the results if you don’t! Hoping I still have gainful employment after Tuesday, I’ll return next weekend. But until then…

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

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“Ohio State has one of the best looking uniforms in CFB, and should forget all these lame looking alternate or retro uniforms. Most of the retro uniforms that college or NFL use that go back to the leather helmet days just don’t work.”

–Rick AZ