Sunday Morning Uni Watch

By Phil Hecken & THE SMUW Crew
Follow @PhilHecken

I was all set to completely pan THE Ohio State University’s mono-gray uniforms — as gray as the sky above Columbus was yesterday — and note that they’d probably be forever remembered as trash, due to the woodshedding the Buckeyes took at the hands of Pennsylvania State yesterday. Then, a funny thing happened — OSU managed a tremendous come-from-behind victory and suddenly the unis didn’t look so bad. OK, they were still pretty bad, but not as bad as they’d have been had OSU lost.

There were actually a bunch of folks who didn’t want OSU to break out the all gray duds. This included The Pennsylvania State University. OSU fans were none too thrilled either, especially after a first half that saw the Buckeyes trailing 28-17. In fact, many of them wanted the team to change jerseys at the break. Good thing they didn’t.

Part of the reason for PSU’s objection to the uniforms was the thought that they were too similar to the PSU whites. I watched a good chunk of this game, and I never had a problem telling the two teams apart. I also couldn’t help but think how drab and dreary they were. You know, like when two teams play on a muddy field. Just not a good look. And I love a gray vs. white game in baseball — but seeing one on a football field just doesn’t look right. At least OSU got the win. Otherwise these uniforms might have been as hated for their looks as they would have been for the result.

Here’s TJ with the rest of your…

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet, Jr.

FINALLY, some good football weather! It was gloomy, dreary, and wet in parts of the country over the weekend, and I welcome it.

From Friday:

• SMU went all-red against Tulsa.

• Boston College wore the red bandanna helmet stripes and cleats for their Red Bandanna game against Florida State. The Red Bandanna Game is held by the Eagles in honor and memory of BC Alum Welles Crowther. Learn more here.

From Saturday:

• What do you do when it’s Homecoming for your school, but it’s also Halloween weekend? You do double-duty by wearing your favorite Halloween costume on Homecoming, of course. Also, Wisconsin wore the white facemasks again.

• The story goes as such: West Virginia Junior WR Gary Jennings got nailed by a bird during a routine practice one day. The bird lived, but some of its feathers were left behind, and Jennings puts them in his helmet during the game. I’ve been told that he had apparently been doing it for at least the last few games or so this season. In that same game, Oklahoma State wore all-white.

• Maryland wore these gems against Indiana. Hoosiers OL Hunter Littlejohn (he wears #68) was at the mercy of Adidas’s Laffy Taffy material, which has a reputation for distorting the nameplates on the back of the jerseys. The result? PC (and the spot) goes to Gregory Koch/@gregoryakoch (more pics in the linked handle, btw). Also from Koch: Hoosiers DL Robert McCray III had the rare Mac+roman numeral combo on his NOB.

• Two notes from the Florida/Georgia Line game are that Florida wore pink ribbon decals and gloves, and the game was NOT its fairly-usual color-vs-color affair (here’s what that would normally look like).

• UNC’s navy unis could’ve been great, but they just HAAAAAD to go with the white helmets. Navy lids are the only real correct answer here. Hell, even their regular Carolina Blue helmets would’ve been far-superior to what they actually wore. At least the Canes looked fantastic.

• When I was shown this photo, my first thought was that South Carolina were set to wear throwbacks, but then I looked at the Adidas logo and said “wait a minute”, only to realize that it was actually Jacksonville State’s throwback uni (PC: PT/@PThomas19).

• The Buckeyes wore their Halloween costumes against Penn State. Costumes are totally welcome in my book when applicable (such as the last Saturday in October just before Halloween)… but couldn’t they have gotten with the Nittany Lions beforehand and requested that they wear blue? Because the result looked like… well, let’s just say that had it not been for the scarlet LeBron cleats, officials and spotters would’ve been evenmore miserable.

• Northwestern wore purple and gold decals on their matte black helmets (and wore mono-black to boot) against Michigan State. Perfect for Halloween weekend.

• It’s kinda hard to tell because filters, but Purdue wore neon green socks for their Hammer Down Cancer initiative. They’ve had slightly-more showy demonstrations in the past.

• Texas A&M wore all-maroon uniforms. The jersey tops in particular feature a scaled down version of their normal numbers (in what appears to be grey, at that), and no NOBs.

That’ll do it for Week 9. Tune in next week for the start of November’s games, which are paramount for a lot of teams, as well as the usual assortment of stars & stripes, camouflage, and whatever awaits us on the horizon. See you next week.

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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 again for 2017 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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Happy Sunday, all!. There is a chill in the air, and the season is heating up. Lets see who made the list for week 9…

5) Georgia vs Florida — I always enjoy the Cocktail Party. Even though it wasn’t a color v. color, like it was last year, it was still a very enjoyable game to look at.

4) Louisiana-Monroe at Idaho — Sometimes, just a simple search for games results in finding a surprisingly good-looking game. The Warhawks looked great in white/mono-maroon, and it paired up rather nicely against the silver/silver/white of the Vandals. A very under the radar color v. color game.

3) Missouri at Connecticut — There was just something about the color differences in the two uniforms that made this game work for me. Something about the black/white/gold of Mizzou against the white/mono-navy with red and white on the sleeves of UConn that clashed well and worked here.

2) Houston at South Florida — USF is one of the few teams that, to me, can pull off the mono-color look (in their case, mono-green) excellently. This game, with the gold lid, is one of them. Pair that up against the chrome red/white/black that the Cougars went with, and you have quite the bold, sharp looking game down in Tampa.

1) Toledo at Ball State — To a Thursday night in the MAC we go for an absolute beauty of a game. Really thought the Rockets looked fantastic in matte grey/white/grey on the road. Contrast that against the red/black/red of the Cardinals and you have quite the stunning looking game in Muncie.

And, finally…

+1) Cornell at Princeton — I originally had two other games picked for this spot… and then I turned past NBCSN and saw this game. Mono-orange really looks terrible, especially when paired against a team wearing red.

Enjoy the rest of the week, everyone. I will see you again next week!

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Thanks Joe! You can follow Joe on the Twitter and let him know what you think of his choices or make a 5 & 1 suggestion of your own!

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NCAA Uni Tracking

Uni Watch will again track the uniform combinations worn by the “Power 5” conferences. All of the 2016 trackers are back!

We’ve got Rex Henry (tracking the ACC), Dennis Bolt (tracking the PAC-12), Kyle Acker (tracking the Big XII), and Ethan Dimitroff (tracking the B1G AND the SEC). Rex, Dennis, and Kyle and are all returning from 2015, and Ethan is back after joining the NCAA Uni Tracking last season. Ethan has stepped into the dual role of both the B1G and the SEC.

Here are the Uni Trackers for the Power 5 Conferences:

+ + + + + + + + + +

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.
Follow Dennis on Twitter here.

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And here is Ethan, with the SEC:

SEC

And be sure to check out Ethan’s WVU Mountaineer Tracker.
Follow Ethan on Twitter here.

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And here is Kyle with the Big XII:

Big XII

Follow Kyle on Twitter here.

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And here’s Ethan with the B1G:

B1G

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Welcome to the 2017 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!

Thanks Dennis!

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XFL Redesign Contest Reminder

In case you missed it, last weekend I announced our latest jersey design contest, this time to reimagine a team from the XFL if the league were still operational in 2017.

All the deets are here.

Deadline for submissions is October 31 at 11:59 EDT.

Good luck!

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And now a few words from Paul: Hi there. In case you missed it Friday, I had a prototype Uni Watch mini-helmet made (shown at right; click to enlarge), to go along with the full-size helmet that Riddell made for me. If there’s enough interest from you folks, we’ll make them available for sale. Full details here.

Also from Friday, we have a bunch of new Naming Wrongs shirts for the Hive, Nassau Coliseum (don’t scoff, at least not until you see the awesome designs!), the Hartford Civic Center (now available in UConn colors), Reunion Arena, and Brendan Byrne Arena.

And from earlier in the week, in case you missed it, we also launched new shirts for the L.A. Forum, the Hoosier Dome, the Salt Palace, and RFK Stadium (now in DC United colors).

Okay, end of sales pitch. Thanks, as always, for your consideration.

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Uni Watch News Ticker
By Phil

Baseball News: This is very cool: Fox 26 Houston Meteorologist Lisa Vaughn made her own Houston Astros-themed tequila sunrise skirt and wore it on Saturday’s early morning broadcast (from Coach Seth Harris). … Tweeter Sean Jankowski noticed that USA Baseball is using a different World Series Logo than MLB. … Port Arthur native and former Astros pitcher Xavier Hernandez reminisces on ‘Dome, ‘rainbow’ uniforms. A key set of lines: “The road jerseys were more yellow,” Hernandez said. “Off-white and yellow. I hated those, didn’t like them. When I rejoined the team, they had already moved to the updated logo and the road jerseys were grey. That was much better.” … During an unrelated presser, MLB Commish Rob Manfred was asked about the future of the Cleveland baseball logo: “We continue to have conversations with the Indians about the logo, and it’s an issue I intend to deal with in the offseason,” (from Ted Arnold). … WHOA! Check out this absolutely gorgeous (and orange!) dugout jacket being sported by Leo Durocher (from Bruce Menard).

NFL News: I’m not sure of the location for this photograph, but check out the alternate NFL helmet colors behind the photo subjects (from Stephen Polacheck‏). … If you scroll down to the fifth item in this article, it appears the Carolina Panthers will break out the black jerseys against Tampa Bay today. … Real nice old artwork appropriate for todays Chargers v Patriots game, from 1960 (from Michael Malnicof). And here’s how the field looked at Fenway Pahk (from Bob Tufts), where the Patriots would play games. For their Boston Patriots years, they never had a regular home stadium. Nickerson Field, Harvard Stadium, Fenway Park, and Alumni Stadium all served as home fields during their time in the American Football League. … Have you started your holiday shopping? How about a Derek Carr bobblehead (also posted in NCAAFB). … A 63-year-old former paramedic has designed a helmet he thinks could revolutionize football safety (from Jason Hillyer).

College Football News: Have you started your holiday shopping? How about a Derek Carr bobblehead (when he played for Fresno State). … Clint Richardson‘s description of this error was so good, I’m just gonna quote him: “Apparently CBS doesn’t the difference between a professional basketball team and a collegiate football program.” (Also posted in NBA section.)

Hockey News: Whoa — the Minnesota Gophers’ Eric Schierhorn has a mask half painted to look like an old school mask & half painted like his actual head (nice spot by @datdamndj).
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NBA News: On Friday night, Warriors Coach Steve Kerr wore this to honor Al Attles during the Wizards/Warriors game (from Zachary Loesl). … Clint Richardson‘s description of this error was so good, I’m just gonna quote him: “Apparently CBS doesn’t the difference between a professional basketball team and a collegiate football program.” (Also posted in College Football section.) … My buddy Jimmer Vilk knows all about the Richfield Coliseum, and he’s very aware when there is fake news concerning the old gal. … Good spot/question from Spooky Enrique, who says, “Lakers uniform enigma gets curiouser. Jazz wearing blue at home, Lakers wearing white on the road for 1st time ever?”

College Hoops News: Before their game on Friday night, Duke players wore black and white shirts reading “EQUALITY” in warmups (good spot from James Gilbert).
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Soccer News: Here’s a look at the leaked Juventus referee tribute fourth shirt to celebrate the clubs 120th anniversary (from @tonyjuve10). He adds, “Nov 1 – Kit will be worn in the home game against Benevento. 1897 of them will be released to the public, the year it was founded.” … Yesterday, Manchester United players walked out with mascots’ names on their shirts ahead of their huge clash with Tottenham Hotspur

Grab Bag: “I don’t know if this was on purpose but I noticed the cop in the new stranger things season has a USA Flag patch and it seems to be facing the wrong way from the traditional setup of ‘it should be positioned as if running into battle’ sort of thing,” says Matthew Blinco. “The same thing occurs in a separate scene with a jacket.” … This winter cap mixup at Walgreens probably won’t anger either fanbase, will it? (from Josh Claywell). … “Been a fan of the site for ages (ESPN) but never submitted before,” says Mark Campbell (Welcome aboard Mark!). “The Rugby league world cup started on Friday so watch some if you can but I noticed some uni related novelties that may interest you and the other readers: (1) No 3 (I think its Tim Lafai) has a different coloured yellow number from the rest of his team; (2) White vs White as USA take on Fiji. Game seems to go on regardless; and (3) Another number malfunction in the Wales vs PNG game. One of a few for PNG.” (I’m going to guess PNG is “Papua New Guinea”.)

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