By Phil Hecken
Well, it was quite the day in the universe yesterday (and Thursday and Friday), but the red Sunday was quite…something. Terry will have the full scoop below, but not only did Nebraska break out its “Red Rising” uniform set versus Illinois, but Kansas also broke out their all reds (which they call “Crimson Chrome”). And for good measure, the Wolfpack of North Carolina State put the fear of God into #1 Florida State, possibly due to their all reds, before finally succombing.
Thursday saw a couple new looks, Friday brought back the turquoise for the Lobos and yesterday…well, yesterday had a little bit of everything, including smoke, platinum and gray. Well, they’re all “gray” but some teams need new names for it, ya know?
So kick back whilst my Sunday Morning Uni Watch guru Terry Duroncelet, Jr. takes you through all of the action. Here’s TJ with your…
. . .
Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet
Hello all to the first Saturday of Autumn! Well, technically, you’ll be reading this on a Sunday, but anyway, after minimal action last week, we had a surge of grey, throwbacks, grey, fancy helmets, more grey, three teams invoking the bloodclot-era Cleveland baseball team, and did I mention GREY?
From Thursday:
• Texas Tech sprung a new alternate white uniform on us. They call it the “White Ombré” uniform. The jerseys and pants are fine, but I’m not sure what to make of that helmet. Is that airbrushed? What??? [It's hand painted -- PH] Meanwhile, Oklahoma State also showed off some new (possibly orange chrome) lids. They wore orange helmets with a black/grey/black stripe (also note the paint issues), an enlarged logo on either side, and a chrome facemask. I gotta say, I really dig this helmet a lot more than I would ever thought I would. And if I was required to choose one team in college football to wear grey for grey’s sake, I would immediately go with Oklahoma State. There’s just something attractive about black, orange, and grey working together in one scheme. The only turd in the punchbowl that I saw were the black pants. Orange would’ve worked far better.
• In the later game from Thursday evening, Arizona State wore mono-black with last year’s flame helmets. They still look like an abysmal paint job from afar. Yeesh. The flame kits that DW makes are far better than these helmets. Fun fact: Drum Workshop (a.k.a. DW) and UCLA (Arizona State’s opponents) are both located in California.
From Friday:
• New Mexico not only wore white at home, but they also brought out new turquoise-accented uniforms. Chalk me up as a fan! Now, I’m honestly just curious when I say this: is there a reason why they haven’t added it as a full-time color to their uniforms?
From Saturday:
• Penn State took the player names off of their jerseys for homecoming. From Max K: “I’m Max from Pennsylvania, and I saw that today my Nittany Lions will be going NNOB as a little “throwback” for homecoming weekend.”
• Here’s a note from Preston Feiler: “Normally Georgia wears white Captains letters on their red jerseys and black one on the white jerseys. Yet for some reason today vs Tennessee they came out with black C’s on the red jerseys“. Also, is it just me, or are upside-down 3’s on the field a theme for football this year? Credit to Dan Bly for sending that pic in.
• SMU wore a new combination of red chrome helmets, blue jerseys, and grey pants (hard to see the pants).
• Virginia wore throwbacks on Saturday. I guess everyone’s having a bad day with field markings this year, huh (note the faded arrows)? Credit to Jonathan May for that pic. Also, the coaches wore orange ribbons [In support of the search for UVA student Hannah Graham -- PH].
• Grainy photo, but Akron wore gold chrome helmets against Pitt. More photos here.
• One thing that I dislike in a uniform is imbalance. More specifically, white helmets paired with a monochromatic uniform. Another thing that I dislike is GFGS for a team that just can’t pull it off. Take a wild guess at how much I liked Miami’s combination from Saturday. Take as much time as you need.
• Speaking of grey, Kentucky wore blue/blue/grey. I’m not too partial the grey jerseys that they have (especially in the sweatbox template), but the grey pants with the blue helmet and jersey ain’t too bad.
• “HIT ‘EM HARD! But first, let me take a selfie.” Those are the selfie helmets that Purdue wore against Iowa.
• In case you were curious as to what was on the sleeves of all of the coaches over the weekend…
• Utah wore red/red/black. They usually wear a white facemask with the red helmets, but for yesterday’s game, they swapped them out for black.
• Virginia Tech went heavy on the orange over the weekend.
• Arkansas wore full-white at home [The game was in JerryWorld, so it was technically a neutral site game -- PH]
• Toledo went white/navy/white for the Glass Bowl.
• ESPN used an outdated logo for Florida State. Also from that game, NC State wore all-red.
• Kansas wore their “Crimson Chrome” uniforms. Surely, they couldn’t be outdone by another Adidas-wearing team on the same day, right?
• Err… I stand corrected. MAN, that’s a lot of red. I mean, A LOT a lot. Also in that same game, FINALLY Illinois wore something other than white helmets and white pants! I can definitely get used to those dark (but not burnt) orange helmets.
• Cincinnati wore CKP decals in honor of Chamoda Kennedy-Palmore, who died on Thursday. They will remain on the helmets for the remainder of the season. More here.
• Ole Miss wore light blue helmets against Memphis. In addition, they added ’38’ to the endzones and painted the 38-yard hashmarks red in honor of Chucky Mullins.
• Montana State honored their 1984 National Championship team by wearing throwbacks.
• For the second time this season, LSU wore the purple tops at home against non-conference opponent New Mexico State, who had some NOB issues.
• Syracuse wore mono-GFGS with orange helmets against Notre Dame, who wore their road whites.
And that’ll do it for this last Saturday of the year. Next week should be the start of… THE PINKENING. All we can do is prepare. See you next week.
. . .
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.
. . .
5. Memphis vs. Ole Miss: I love these Ole Miss throwback helmets. They alone made this match-up worthy of the countdown!
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4. Michigan State vs. Wyoming: Classic. Nothing wild. It’s sad that that gets credit these days! While I could do without the detail on WYO’s shoulder pads, overall this was a pretty match-up.
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3. Fresno State vs. New Mexico: This was the highest “tipped” game of the week as I received the most emails about it! While Fresno State looked sharp, most of you were dying to point out how good the Lobos looked with the teal numeros.
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2. Michigan vs. Minnesota: Not much about Michigan football is pretty this year but I will give them credit for this beautiful match-up.
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1. UVA vs. Kent State: These UVA throwbacks were enough to get this to #1 on their own. Woo, Lord, are they beautiful.
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+1 Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma State: It’s going to be a 5 and 1 policy that when you swing and miss this bad, you get the +1. Sorry, Texas Tech.
. . . . .
Thanks, Catherine!
I don’t normally ever do this, but I have to say there is at least one co-#1 bad game (and that T-Tech/’pokes game is bad) — Nebraska/Illinois. Nebraska alone was awful, but when you combine the two teams, this was just one difficult matchup. People at the game were tweeting to me the silver reflective numbers were unreadable from the stands, and well just check out these comments.
But it was a great list from Catherine, I think.
OK readers, how’d she do?
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 5 & 6 (click to enlarge):
Uni Watch News Ticker:
Baseball News: Good question posed here by Danny Garrison, who asks, “Why did Modell’s remove the Nats logo from Gio’s hat if they’re using it on the t-shirt anyway?” … Mike the Intern writes, “I just found these two White Sox fan jerseys hilarious. Both were retweeted by @barstoolbigcat.” … The Diamondbacks became Los D-Backs last night.
NFL News: One of the things not normally mentioned when discussing the Washington football team is the fact that they “are selling World Cup beer, and Budweiser says it has ‘passed its freshness date’,” (from Tommy Turner). … Reader Jeremy Edom “Found a fascinating article on the IndyStar website about my Colts and their uniform preferences. Pretty good read!” he adds.
College Football News: Most of the College Football news is up above in the SMUW, but, with the Ducks on bye-week status, that doesn’t mean they’re idle. They’re teasing some pink crap for their Thursday night game against Arizona. A full reveal will be Tuesday. “Can’t wait” /sarcasm. … Husker-doodle-don’t? “I think the reaction to these uniforms is almost completely negative,” writes Pastor Sherman. “This cartoon sums the uniforms up well. This is from the paper in Alliance, NE.” … Tweeter King Jambo (@benantell) thinks that Bill Snyder not wearing an old bowl jacket has to be a first. This was also sent in by Douglas Ford, who dubs this a “#douchebag” move. Josh Claywell said it’s jarring to see him in anything but a purple windbreaker.
Hockey News: Yesterday morning, the Tampa Bay Lightning unveiled their new third sweater. Meh. Looks like their old BOLTS sweater, only this time in black. Here’s another look at the new uni, and this article on the new uni includes a video of the new uniform from all angles. Woulda looked better with palm trees. … Thanks to Mike Engle, the Winnipeg Jets’ Mark Scheifele was caught wearing a hilariously misspelled jersey during last night’s preseason game.
Grab Bag: Reader Jason Ricles was riding the SEPTA in Philly, and saw one of the stations has now been renamed “Jefferson Station,” not after the President, but after Jefferson University Hospital. Just more examples of selling naming rights in places they don’t belong. … Joseph Gerard was at the WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia for Ring of Honor Wrestling. “Anyways, I saw a banner for the Wheeling Ironmen–doesn’t their logo look a lot like the original Houston Oilers logo?” … HS BFBS: Hutchinson High School in Kansas has gone BFBS under new coach Ryan Cornelson. Hutch’s colors are blue and gold. Cornelson did the same thing at Hays High, whose colors are maroon and gold (5:05 in video), with thanks to David Steinle. Russell Westbrook is not only an NBA star, he’s a fashion all-star as well (thanks to Tommy Turner for that).
And that’s a wrap for today. Everyone have a great week. Thanks to TJ & Catherine (and Alex) — let them know how they did! Next weekend we’ll have the usual plus the first MLB Playoff trackers of the 2014 season. Catch you then!
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken
Peace.
.. … ..
“Brewers should retire 0 for Selig to represent all the great things he’s done for baseball.”
— Tim
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