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Good Sunday Morning, Uni Watchers. And welcome to Week 9 of your Sunday Morning Uni Watch.
Hallowe’en is tomorrow, but the University of Tennessee got a jump start on the holiday by breaking out their BFBS uniforms, this time complete with a BFBS helmet, which is new this year. As most of you know, I hate BFBS uniforms as a general rule, but there are some teams who do it right — and when they do, you gotta tip your cap to them. UT is one of those teams.
UT first introduced this black set last year, but unfortunately (supposedly due to supply chain issues), they were unable to add a black helmet, and as such, they didn’t look quite right. But with the new black hats this year, the set looked pretty outstanding.
The combo of black and orange was perfect, the numbers popped, the striping was fantastic. And the festive holiday nature of the uniforms kinda excuses the BFBS — for this weekend anyway. As you can see from the splash photo, many players wore orange leggings, but more than a few did not — some went with black socks/leggings, which wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing, while others were barelegged. But still, this was a fine looking uni.
Tennessee’s opponent was the University of Kentucky, and they wore blue helmets and white jerseys/pants, so the game was an overall good looking affair as well.
One not-funny-but-kinda-funny moment occurred during the game, when Tennessee’s Jerome Carvin accidentally headbutted teammate without a helmet. Whoops!
You can see lots more game photos here. And for a history of UT’s alternate uniforms in recent years, click here.
And with that, I’ll now turn this over to Terry Duroncelet, Jr. who’ll take you through the rest of your…
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Sunday Morning Uni Watch by Terry Duroncelet, Jr.
It’s Halloween Weekend, which means that for all of college football, this is their last chance for the next year to do their worst before I go back to roasting them on November 5th. Tennessee did not pull any punches, so here’s hoping D-1 (and maybe a little D-1AA) followed suit.
From Thursday:
• Washington State/Utah: Wazzu wore helmets that said, well, ‘Wazzu’ in their game against Utah, who wore their Aaron Lowe/Ty Jordan tribute helmets once again (closer look at that Cougs lid). While I was image hunting, I came across this gif, which I thought was really cool, and a great idea for fitting multiple action shots into one space (original article said gif is from).
From Saturday:
• SJSU/Nevada: The Wolf Pack wore white helmets with a ‘CM 6’ Spartan logo decal on the back of their helmets in their game against the SJSU Spartans. This was in honor and memory of Spartan Freshman Camdan McWright, who passed away earlier in the week.
• Fresno State/SDSU: Full navy togs (including helmets!) For the Bulldogs.
• Minnesota/Rutgers: M A X I M U M O V E R D R I V Ehelmet decals for the Golden Gophers (and holiday-appropriate mono-black unis to-boot). There’s a McDonald’s joke here somewhere. On the other side of the ball, the Linen Knights wore their full-white uniforms. Ghostly!
• South Carolina/Missouri: Interesting helmets from Mizzou. At first when I saw the Tweet to this, my first thought was “I feel I would like it a bit more if the ‘Tigers’ script had a gold stroke”, but once I saw them on the field, my thoughts quickly turned to “Nah, they nailed it“. South Carolina also wore their garnet helmets.
• Florida/Georgia: [SIDE NOTE: Yes, I know that billing should technically be ‘Georgia/Florida’, but this flows better for obvious reasons.] The Bulldogs wore helmet decals in honor of recently-deceased Georgia great Charley Trippi. Aesthetics-wise, it was about what you’d expect (the blue pants for the Gators are a nice touch), but in the [holiday] spirit of things, it would’ve been nice to see Georgia in these (maybe even with the seldom-seen black helmets), and Florida in the orange unis. But this works. One final note: Georgia lost another legend in their ranks the day before this game; former Bulldogs coach Vince Dooley, the winningest coach in the history of the program. Due to the timing, they were not able to manifest any sort of uni-based memorial. They do have something planned for next week, however.
• Florida State/Georgia Tech: Another F/G Line game was taking place, and Florida State broke out the white helmets again. This time though, they had garnet facemasks in place of the white.
• Texas Tech/Baylor: Throwback uniforms for the Red Raiders.
• Syracuse/Notre Dame: Christopher Moretti notes: “You see misspellings on uniforms reasonably regularly, which is nevertheless worth a submission in general, but I found one today particularly interesting because it had to do with punctuation, putting a hyphen in the wrong spot in a three-word last name: Syracuse misspelled (mis-hyphenated?) their own QB’s name on his uniform in Saturday 10/29’s game versus Notre Dame. QB Carlos Del Rio-Wilson’s nameplate showed “DEL-RIO WILSON”.”
• Virginia/Miami: Virginia’s coaching staff wore pink jackets in their game against Miami.
• Michigan/Michigan State: Contrast Matters: Great White North Edition (please don’t kill me if that’s not the right usage of “Great White North”, I’ve been a desert-dwelling Southern transplant my entire life). The highlight of course is the latest variation of the Spartans’ white helmets, which feature a Spartan head logo in white edged in green (closer look). The Wolverines wore their mono-blues, but a lot of them were also wearing maize socks, which I think really brought the look together. Lastly, Moe Khan on Twitter noticed a Michigan player’s Jumpman logo was on the incognito side.
• FAU/UAB: Because it’s otherwise IMPOSSIBLE to show you via game photos (at least, in detail), FAU wore palm trees on the back of their helmets in their game against UAB.
• Georgia State/Old Dominion: The Panthers had a star-spangled logo at midfield on Saturday against Old Dominion.
• UAlbany/Stony Brook: Another rare FCS mention, with the Great Danes of UAlbany wearing BCA pink decals and stripes against rival Stony Brook (closer look).
• Colorado/Arizona State: @FSU561 on Twitter spotted a relic from the past: a Flywire jersey STILL IN USE in 2022! For those who (understandably) don’t keep up with Nike’s hootenanny, the Flywire collar was designed in 2011 or so to act as a pre-2012 Dallas Cowboys-style tie-down for the jersey tops. It faded into obscurity, I would say around 2015, 2016. Maybe it’s a preference thing? Or maybe they were just trying to use up some NOS?
And with THAT, Week 9 is in the books, as is October. The ‘Ween isn’t until tomorrow, but at any rate, have a spectacular Halloween, full of fun, scares, tunes, a hefty dentist bill (unless you have insurance, in which case it’ll only be partially-hefty), and I’ll see you next week!
• • • • •
Thanks, TJ — fantastic stuff as always. Next up is Wade with your…
Canadian University Uni Watch
New for 2022 is Canadian University Uni Watcher Wade Heidt, who has joined the SMUW crew this year and will bring us some looks at three-down, 110-yard Canadian university football from up north. That’s Wade to the right side of your screen (you can even click to enlarge). The shirt Wade is wearing was created by the one and only Wafflebored! Wade’s rundown will appear every week on SMUW until the season ends.
Enjoy!
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Canadian University Uni Watch by Wade Heidt
You know what time it is! Time for some university football uniform watching Canadian rules style. It’s time for the CUUW!
I am bringing this look at Canadian university football to you from the United States this weekend. I’m just across the border in Seattle for an event related to my side gig as a fitness instructor. The timing worked out well as I was able to see my Vancouver Canucks win their first game of the NHL season on Thursday night in the Emerald City!
Now onto the Canadian gridiron. We wrapped up the regular seasons in 3 conferences and started playoffs in Ontario. The CUUW will travel from east to west as we like to do.
• We had an interesting situation for this game in the Atlantic conference (AUS). The September 25th game between Bishop’s and Saint Mary’s in Halifax was cancelled due to Hurricane Fiona. The game was not rescheduled.
In Canadian football, the standings are based on points accumulated for wins. Think of it like hockey. A team gets 2 points for a win. Since there was no make-up game, yesterday’s match-up between Bishop’s and Saint Mary’s was for 4 points in the standings. Really high stakes!
• The Bishop’s Gaiters wore purple over purple at home in Lennoxville, QC. The Saint Mary’s Huskies wore their white/white/maroon combo and look good on the road.
• In the Quebec conference (RSEQ), the Concordia Stingers wore maroon over maroon at home in Montreal. A generous percentage of Canadian schools wear maroon or garnet in Eastern Canada. The visiting Laval Rouge et Or went with their gold/white/white combo.
How about some playoff action? We will look at a couple of OUA Quarterfinals in Ontario
• The Ottawa Gee-Gees wore their garnet/garnet/white combo at home. They just introduced the garnet helmet this year and now it seems they never wear their traditional silver helmet anymore. The visiting Windsor Lancers went white over navy.
• In Kingston, we know what the Queen’s Gaels wore at home of course. It was the full athletic gold for the Tricolour. The Toronto Varsity Blues with the standard road white over navy.
• Now we move to the Canada West conference. The Alberta Golden Bears wearing their athletic gold/green/athletic gold combo in Edmonton. A common home look after a lot of mixing and matching for the Bears this year. The visiting UBC Thunderbirds going white over navy. Seems to be a common combo this weekend for road teams.
The road to the 57th Vanier Cup game in London, ON, is in full swing next weekend as the playoffs get underway for all the conferences. Exciting times when the teams lay it on the line. In the meantime, I will enjoy the rest of my weekend in the USA. Getting used to receiving dollar bills and pennies back in change, seeing beer sold in 7-Eleven, and trying to figure out what the temperature will be outside when I am told it is 56 degrees.
• • • • •
Thanks, Wade! Great stuff — see you next weekend!
Mexican University Uni Watch
What’s that now?
Yes — for ONE DAY ONLY, we’ll take a look at some uniforms from South of the Border.
It all started with an e-mail I received from Drew Stiling earlier this week. Drew wrote:
Phil,
Hi, my name is Drew Stiling. I’m a Chicago native that did a master’s degree in Mexico City.
Many Mexican universities field college football teams and take it fairly seriously.
Would you be interested in having me do a post on those teams?
Drew
After some brief back and forth, we agreed this would be a one time only — I simply don’t have the bandwidth to add any more to the already packed SMUW, and (as I thought it might), there aren’t all that many quality photos of Mexican University football. Go figure.
But in the spirit and style of Wade’s CUUW, here’s Drew with the…
• • • • •
Mexican University Uni Watch by Drew Stiling
We now head south of the border to check in on college football action in Mexico, where the sport has been played by universities for nearly 100 years.
In celebrating the 70th Anniversary of their home stadium (the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City), where the Pumas (Lions) of the famed UNAM City University defeated the crosstown rival Linces (Lynx) of the University of the Valley of Mexico (UVM). The home team wore gold helmets, navy blue uniforms with gold lettering, lighter gold pants, while the visitors wore silver helmets and red jerseys and pants.
Dressed in all white uniforms with silver lettering and maroon helmets, the White Donkeys (Burros Blancos) of Mexico City’s National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) defeated the host Wild Colts (Potros Salvajes) of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM), who were decked out in all black uniforms with gold lettering and gold helmets.
The visiting Rams (Borregos) of Tec de Monterrey’s flagship Monterrey campus in northern Mexico, wearing white and blue helmets, white jerseys, and blue pants, defeated the host Anahuac Lions (Leones) in Mexico City.
• • • • •
Thanks, Drew! This was a fun little extra.
MLB Playoff Jersey Tracking
MLB Playoff Uni Tracking
The 2022 World Series featured a uniform first last night — the Houston Astros wore their alternate blue tops for the first time ever in a World Series game (they’ve been four of the last six World Series). But that’s due to starting pitcher Framber Valdez, who evidently prefers to pitch in the navy tops. He started, and won, both his previous games (in the ALDS and ALCS) wearing the blue rainbow guts, and last night — well… YOU DON’T MESS WITH A STREAK! Like Friday night, the Astros jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead, but this time they held strong, and ended up with a 5-2 victory. If you’ve followed our MLB Jersey tracking, you’ll know the Astros have worn gray on the road for every game so far, so we’d expect they will again now that the Series has moved to Philly. The Phillies have worn their red pins for every home game that was a “night” game (they also wore their cream uniforms for home day games); since all games in the World Series are night games, we can expect to see the Phils in the home red pins for the next three games.
Our longtime tracker Alex Rocklein has all the jerseys covered again. We’ve been enjoying his tracking for a couple weekends now, and he’ll keep us up-to-date through the end of the World Series.
Alex sent me his graphic before the final out was recorded in the Astros/Phillies game, so that’s not reflected in the graphic below. Here are the graphics for the World Series and the Full Tracker. Enjoy!
___________
World Series:
Full Tracker:
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Thanks Alex! We look forward to all your playoff tracking in 2022.
If you click on those links, you’ll be able to read the first few paragraphs of each article. In order to read the entire thing, you’ll need to become a paying subscriber to my Premium content on Substack. (Didn’t hear about my move from Bulletin to Substack? Additional details on that, including the “Pay What You Wish” subscription option, can be found here.)
Also: Longtime Uni Watch reader Trevor “Teebz” Alexander, who runs the Hockey Blog in Canada site, also has a radio broadcast called The Hockey Show. He had me on as a guest a few days ago, and we talked about Reverse Retro, the NHL’s post-Adidas future, and more. It was a really fun discussion, in large part because Teebz is such a great guy. You can check out my segment here.
Okay, now back to Phil!
And finally...
…that’s going to do it for your early morning SMUW. Big thanks to TJ, Wade, Drew and Alex for all their contributions! Next up is Jimmer Vilk’s ever-popular “Five and One” (which should go live at 8:00 am Eastern), Rex, Dennis, James & Ethan’s Power 5 (and Duck) tracking (which will be posted at 8:30 am), and the Ticker, which is scheduled for 9:00 am.
Everyone have a good Sunday and a better week, and I’ll catch you back here next Saturday.
I have to say I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Michigan wearing mono-blue again, but the maize socks were definitely an improvement over wearing blue socks like they did against Penn State.
Due to the timing, they were not able to manifest any sort of uni-based memorial.
A strip of black tape would have sufficed.
Real Philadelphia Eagles Hours only who up
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like Tennessee in this a lot more than in their road whites.
I’ve tried literally a dozen times to reply to the Vilk comment on Tennesses’s BFBS, but it seems to fall in the Mount Allison thread each and every time. At any rate. I’ll be that guy and note that black is not a University of Tennessee school color. Nuff sed.
Mount Allison didn’t make the University playoffs? Shut it down!
Too bad they’re weren’t enough Mexican teams for a 5&1. The White Donkeys vs the Wild Colts wrapped up the &1 part. Pumas vs Linces looked good.
*there
Jim, Mount Allison is in the playoffs. They finished 3rd in the Atlantic conference. They are in the AUS Semifinal at Bishop’s next week. They are an underdog to advance though.
Whew!
Go Mounties!
1. UNC/Pitt was a late start but a really good-looking game. I normally don’t like monochrome but Carolina blue head-to-toe came off looking really good. As an alumnus, it is my favorite color but it looked good, particularly against Pitt’s classic royal/athletic gold combo.
And I have to disagree with NU/Iowa. Iowa looked great as always. But put Northwestern in purple pants and it looks 10 times better than fundamentally black/white with a little athletic gold.
Can’t find a photo, but Missouri wore “St Louis Strong” stickers on their helmets in honor of the victims of the school shooting this week.
Not getting an image for the UBC Thunderbirds. Getting a “something went wrong”
Hey Will. That photo is supposed to be the splash photo that can be seen at the top of the entry.
Phil can we fix the link in the UBC photo?
Hey Wade — sorry for the delay. Was curling.
Photo in the link should work now. My apologies.
Thanks Wade! Good to see my Lancers get some UW love. Although, the Michigan-esque W logo helmet is a severe downgrade from the lone Lancer logo of years gone by.
Windsor almost pulled it off too. They definitely are looking Michigan-esque with theit complete uniform these days.
Fun fact: UNAM’s (American) football team wears navy/gold as an homage to Notre Dame. Color scheme carried over to the futbol club (Pumas of Liga MX). Few years ago, Pumas wore shirts with football-inspired sleeve striping.
Does anyone know what the ’50’ decal on the backs of Michigan State’s helmets is for?
50 years of Title IX: link
Ah. Thanks!
I have to say I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Michigan wearing mono-blue again, but the maize socks were definitely an improvement over wearing blue socks like they did against Penn State.
Due to the timing, they were not able to manifest any sort of uni-based memorial.
A strip of black tape would have sufficed.
Real Philadelphia Eagles Hours only who up
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like Tennessee in this a lot more than in their road whites.
I’ve tried literally a dozen times to reply to the Vilk comment on Tennesses’s BFBS, but it seems to fall in the Mount Allison thread each and every time. At any rate. I’ll be that guy and note that black is not a University of Tennessee school color. Nuff sed.
Mount Allison didn’t make the University playoffs? Shut it down!
Too bad they’re weren’t enough Mexican teams for a 5&1. The White Donkeys vs the Wild Colts wrapped up the &1 part. Pumas vs Linces looked good.
*there
Jim, Mount Allison is in the playoffs. They finished 3rd in the Atlantic conference. They are in the AUS Semifinal at Bishop’s next week. They are an underdog to advance though.
Whew!
Go Mounties!
1. UNC/Pitt was a late start but a really good-looking game. I normally don’t like monochrome but Carolina blue head-to-toe came off looking really good. As an alumnus, it is my favorite color but it looked good, particularly against Pitt’s classic royal/athletic gold combo.
And I have to disagree with NU/Iowa. Iowa looked great as always. But put Northwestern in purple pants and it looks 10 times better than fundamentally black/white with a little athletic gold.
Can’t find a photo, but Missouri wore “St Louis Strong” stickers on their helmets in honor of the victims of the school shooting this week.
You can sorta see it here: link
Here’s what it looks like: link
Wade
Not getting an image for the UBC Thunderbirds. Getting a “something went wrong”
Hey Will. That photo is supposed to be the splash photo that can be seen at the top of the entry.
Phil can we fix the link in the UBC photo?
Hey Wade — sorry for the delay. Was curling.
Photo in the link should work now. My apologies.
Thanks Wade! Good to see my Lancers get some UW love. Although, the Michigan-esque W logo helmet is a severe downgrade from the lone Lancer logo of years gone by.
Windsor almost pulled it off too. They definitely are looking Michigan-esque with theit complete uniform these days.
Fun fact: UNAM’s (American) football team wears navy/gold as an homage to Notre Dame. Color scheme carried over to the futbol club (Pumas of Liga MX). Few years ago, Pumas wore shirts with football-inspired sleeve striping.