By John Ekdahl
The official unveiling of the new uniforms will take place today at 3:30pm.
Thursday night was just the appetizer. The oh-so-briefly-live video that appeared on Virginia Sports TV’s YouTube channel highlighted some key features of the new UVA football uniforms. Reports followed that Friday would see the full rollout.
Those reports were partly true, with the brief promo video below coming out Friday evening.
College football kicks off tonight.
You've been waiting … here's a sneak peek.
Full reveal Saturday at 3:30 🔶⚔⚔🔷 pic.twitter.com/ZEZ0dbGALt— Virginia Football (@UVa_Football) August 26, 2016
This has been a little bit of a messy rollout, as Virginia Sports TV published a video featuring the new unis on Thursday night, which was quickly taken down. Then, UVa’s Equipment Manager said to stay tuned Friday for the reveal. In any event, it appears we’ll get the official release tonight.
The Altoona Curve will be wearing uniforms modeled after the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight, as a tribute to Roberto Clemente. The uniforms (jerseys?) will also be auctioned off for Roberto’s charity.
Tribute to Roberto Clemente Night: It will be one of the most special evenings in Curve history, as the Clemente family has helped the Curve put together an all-encompassing night to honor Clemente and the Pirates. The Curve will be donning 1971 Pirates-style uniforms that will be auctioned off for the Roberto’s Kids charity, and there will be special appearances by the Pirate Parrot, Pierogies and Bucco Brigade and by Pirates’ legend Manny Sanguillen.
The @AltoonaCurve are wearing these Pirates-style throwbacks tonight as a tribute to Roberto Clemente. Love them. pic.twitter.com/9zOZURc7sN
— Sean McCool (@NotSoMcCool) August 26, 2016
The Cardinals will be wearing these caps today. Here’s another view from Instagram.
The Cards will be wearing these whiz bang old timey caps tomorrow. #STLCards pic.twitter.com/atWVQFbbOY
— Jim Hayes (@TheCatOnFox) August 26, 2016
I imagine it’s going to be hard to solve this case in Canada when police are on the lookout for “men in full hockey uniforms“.
The Manitoba Canadian Royal Mounted Police are on the lookout for two men who robbed a beer store in Russell, Manitoba on August 15.
It’s not an unusual crime, until you factor in the one guy wearing a full hockey goalie uniform AND carrying a stick.
Per the Ottawa Citizen, the men were captured on store surveillance shattering the front door of the store and making off with several cases of beer. The “goalie” wore a No. 17 jersey, a blocker pad and a trapper mitt.
Mission Viejo High School in California has 28, yes 28, different uniform combinations going into this season.
Mission Viejo (Calif.) is coming-off the school’s first state football championship last year, and when the Diablos take the field Friday night against Santa Margarita (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.), the players will have a uniform wardrobe fitting a state champ. Earlier this week, the team used a YouTube video to unveil its 2016 look that features 28 uniform and helmet combinations.
USA Today asks if these high school football uniforms, worn by New Richmond in Ohio, should be legal.
OK, so caveats at the outset: This photo is blurry. It’s apparently a screen shot taken from a television image, be it local news or live feed.
Regardless, it clearly depicts black-on-black as part of an all-black ACDC-style get up for New Richmond in Cincinnati. As much as they may be stylish, they’re not functional. For instance, even in a close up shot, can you tell us whose number that is? Really?
New Richmond Cincinnati: worst uniforms ever. Have no idea what the numbers are #new Richmond pic.twitter.com/Tqg2iCHLM1
— Jim Maniaci✠(@jimmaniaci) August 26, 2016
USA Today asks if these high school football uniforms, worn by New Richmond in Ohio, should be legal.
OK, so caveats at the outset: This photo is blurry. It’s apparently a screen shot taken from a television image, be it local news or live feed.
Regardless, it clearly depicts black-on-black as part of an all-black ACDC-style get up for New Richmond in Cincinnati. As much as they may be stylish, they’re not functional. For instance, even in a close up shot, can you tell us whose number that is? Really?
I’d like to see an actual picture before I judge… but let’s be honest – everyone on the field can see them just fine, and that’s all that actually matters for purpose of playing the game.
During a play, with 11 guys in motion and 11 other guys in (presumably) a different color entangled at game speed, those numbers will be illegible. More to the point – why do this? Why not just make the numbers easy to read? That was the original purpose of uniform numbers. Function trumps form in this case.
It matters to the people in the press box, too. Announcers and statisticians can’t be waiting around for confirmation of who is who. That’s what clear, legible big numbers are for.
No. All that *actually* matters is that the refs on the field can tell which 5 offensive players are ineligible to catch a pass. That’s it. Accurate stat-keeping during the game, while nice to have, is not vital to playing the game, especially at the high school level.
Ref needs to know who to call a penalty on, whom to eject in the middle of a fight, etc. etc.
For someone who knows and cares more about this game than I do, you should know better.
Paul has the right idea. I need to go on hiatus.
The refs *can* tell. They’re on the field. They’re literally right there next to the players. They can read the numbers. The guy viewing on TV, maybe not. It’s not ideal for viewing, sure, but it’s certainly playable.
I honestly begin to wonder if The has ever been on or near a football field during a game. If this were soccer, The’s indifference to telling players apart might be defensible, since it’s the same eleven guys the whole time. But on the gridiron, free substitution means that “that guy right there” is not in fact sufficient for safe refereeing. Or playing, or spectating, but since The has already dismissed players, coaches, spectators, and the press from concern, we can just focus on the refs, and in fact they need to be able to see player numbers for more than just pass eligibility.
I honestly wonder if being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian is worth the effort. Let’s take The Jeff’s point and say only the referees need to be able to read the numbers. Setting aside the factual incorrectness of the statement – every coach I played for and against referred to HS players by numbers in all sports, to say nothing of fans, the press box, the PA announcer and anyone else who cared to know who’s who. I know some of the guys who referreed my HS football games had trouble telling uniform numbers, and I played in the early ’90s, when uniforms were simply a way to tell one team from the other, and numbers were clear and legible to identify individuals on a given team. If they botched it then, why make it harder now in the name of being fashionably kewlz and xxxxtreme? Function > form.
The Jeff, as a HS official, I can tell you that the jerseys are legal. They’re also going to be tough to get numbers if New Richmond plays on a poorly lit field. Coaches won’t be happy with the “I couldn’t read the kid’s number when he held” answer they’re going to get from officials, but if they don’t want that, they should buy uniforms with white numbers or borders.
When does the cfb preview come out?
I believe it will be Tuesday. We’ll preview it on here and Paul will have the full scoop on the Mothership.
Definitely psyched for this (it’s now my second favorite ESPN piece PL does, after the MLB preview).
“The Altoona Curve will be wearing uniforms modeled after the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight,”
They actually wore them Friday night. The club’s PR is also wrong: “The Curve will be donning 1971 Pirates-style uniforms” would be the first set of beltless uniforms. The Pirates stopped wearing the vests in July of 1970. (They started again when they moved into PNC Park in 2001.)
link
This game recap includes a photo of a player in the tribute uniform.
The editorial standards of this website…
The lettering on the Curve jersey appears to be green and yellow, instead of Pittsburgh black and yellow. Trick of the lighting? That’s actually a really sweet jersey if those are the actual colors.
Did New Era really make soft crown caps for the Cardinals? Finally something that doesn’t look like a cardboard box. I wish all pro baseball caps were soft crown.
New rule: A team can’t have more uniform combinations than the number of games on their schedule.
COTD winner right there
Regarding the beer store theft in Manitoba, if the Royal Mounted Police are anything like NHL officials there will be no penalty assessed.
Is there a reward? I’m pretty sure it was Bob & Doug McKenzie
Take off! They were with their friend, who’s A COP!
The Ohio high school football uniforms look like the “gunmetal” uniforms the BC Lions did a few years ago
link
Which weren’t awesome but they were perfectly legible.
To me, it’s far less a concern of whether a uniform is legal and more why the holy f*** a public school has 28 frigging uniform combinations?! A school should have a total of 4, because you should have (and only need) two tops, two bottoms and one sock.
Federal and state funding is always getting cut, teachers are paying more and more out of pocket to just teach their kids (my wife works in a school – trust me in our biweekly trips to Target and Walmart for items she will not get reimbursed for), the schools slash arts programs, before and after school programs and other outreach days – but we have to make sure the football team gets to wear an ugly ass costume and then not dress like that again for 3 damn years?
Maybe these asshole manufacturers can think about making the community better and putting their money into something worth while instead of the crap they want us to look at each weekend. It’s shit like this that makes me glance over my clothing purchases and make sure I buy nothing from certain companies. I’m not paying to advertise your garbage.
I really don’t mean to be too much of a dick here, but I’m going to guess that the schools that are getting multiple uniform combinations for their sports teams aren’t in dire need of funding for actual educational needs.
Amen. That high school is D1 in their sports league, and multiple grants have gone to Mission Viejo schools over the years, so yeah. But 28 UNIFORM COMBINATIONS. It’s literally Oregon posing as a high school team.
A lot of the high schools have separate football funds which the parents donate to so it isn’t hitting the school budgets. I agree it’s still a waste but you know how parents can be.
My thought exactly.
28 combos? I actually think it’s in the hundreds. They have black, grey, white, yellow and red. Gotta be more than 28. The yellow and red are fine, the black and grey mixed in are hideous. What a joke – they look ridiculous.
The Cardinals are wearing their 1927 throwbacks tonight.
They have only one cardinal atop the bat, and the words “World’s Champions” (they beat the Yankees in the World Series that year).
I think that’s confusing to some people, and it’s a little odd to me, as well… the throwbacks they’re wearing honor the ’26 WS-winning team, the first in franchise history.
Their ’26 unis were comparatively plain–no pinstripes, nothing across the front of the jersey.
link
And fwiw, the Yankees swept the Pirates in ’27.
A better picture can be found here:
link
Technically, by NFHS rule, these are legal jerseys…
Rule 1-5-1-c-4: “Numbers.. the body of the number shall be either (a) a continuous color(s) contrasting with the jersey color, or (b) the same solid color(s) as the jersey with a minimum of one border that is at least 1/4-inch in width of a single solid contrasting color.”
As an official, I can tell you that it’s going to be awfully hard on some nights to make out the number of the player who commits a foul, though. Might be some “coach, I can’t tell you the number of the guy who held because I couldn’t read it.” some nights.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find that goalie, #17 is a really rare number for goalies to wear….