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Good morning, all. Thanks to everyone for the nice comments after yesterday’s article. We got a LOT of Dad’s house cleared out and we still have a couple of days to go. While it’s tough getting rid of fifty-plus years of memories, at least it was fun to throw some of them out the third-story window. My niece took a video of me doing that, but for some reason I wasn’t able to post it online.
Anyway, what you see above is another Almost-Top-Five matchup. I absolutely love it when the Minnesota Golden Gophers go gold/maroon/gold! Athletic gold, metallic gold…as long as it isn’t shiny or chrome gold. Probably my favorite look for them. I love Rhode Island’s ram helmets too, but the light blue numbers on the white jersey kept this off my list. With dark blue numbers, they would have had a fighting chance. So who did make the Top Five? We’ll find out later on, but let’s check in with the rest of the SMUW Crew first, beginning with the one and only Terry Duroncelet.
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Wow, talk about getting Upset Week off the ground quickly, huh? Also a lot of closer-than-they-probably-should’ve-been games. Let’s get right to it.
From Monday, September 2nd
• Florida State/Boston College: For those who were gatekept by the now seemingly-annual Disney/DirecTV drama, this game –while it didn’t look like a TOTAL scrimmage game— really would have benefited from the Noles wearing these. Also, take a look at BC: their pants and accoutrements all have the modern mountain logo (which is literally what they’ve been using forever post-leaf, but without the ‘adidas’ wordmark underneath), but the actual jersey tops have the “classic” 3 stripes logo (with the wordmark). The accessories I can understand, but the uniform pants? Kinda odd that they would mix components like that.
From Friday, September 6th
• SMU/BYU: BYU’s so royal’d out these days, it’s easy to forget that they can also technically wear navy. On the other side of the ball, Team Pony (no Friendship is Magic) wore the newest version of their seldom-seen red jerseys.
From Saturday, September 7th
• Michigan/Texas: BRUUUUUHHHHH, why do the Wolverines insist on these navy pants??? You could’ve had an EASY Top 5 uni matchup! It was RIGHT THERE!!! Geez Louise, you win one (1) CFP in all-navy, and you suddenly make navy pants your ENTIRE personality. Abolish the navy trou already. The only thing more blue than their jump(man) suits is their end result, losing to #3 Texas. Yeah, take this L on the chin while you take those navy pants to the laundromat.
• Ohio/South Alabama: I wonder how many Pittsburgh people’s fight-or-flight responses* were activated at the sight of South Alabama’s helmets (*yes, I’m fully-aware that the Penguins are flightless birds). Here’s a closer look at that helmet, thanks to Blaise D’Sylva.
• Ole Miss/MTSU: Ole Miss wearing their best look on Saturday. (JV: Most definitely!)
• Colorado State/Northern Colorado: Aggie alts for Colorado State (love the colors, but I miss the bone horn helmets).
• Utah/Baylor: They still give me Greatness Green Bay vibes, but the all-white is –ironically– a more exciting look.
• Rice/Texas Southern: Rice wore helmets with decals that correspond to that particular player’s residential college. I’ve never seen anything like this, pretty cool! More lore here, here, and here.
• Auburn/Cal: The Golden Bears living up to their name. Well, as much as they can given the white jerseys (I’m never gonna get used to that ACC patch). Plus, any time that Auburn loses is a win in my book.
• West Virginia/UAlbany: Aptly dressed in full-canary, the Mountaineers flew by the Great Danes in their Saturday tilt.
• Vanderbilt/Alcorn St: Color-vs-color matchup between these two. Also, why does Alcorn State’s logo remind me of a logo for a shopping mall that’s frozen in 1993? That’s not a bad thing, of course.
• UTEP/Southern Utah: …I only have one thing to say about UTEP’s unis from yesterday.
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Thanks, Terry!
Canadian University Uni Watch
Returning for 2024 is Wade Heidt, who will appear every week on SMUW until the season ends. The jersey he’s wearing was created by the one and only Wafflebored (who took the photo as well). Now, let’s enjoy Wade’s look at the three-down, 110-yard game from up north.
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You know what time it is. Time for some university football uniform watching Canadian rules style! It’s time for the CUUW!
There are few home games for a school during a U Sports football season. Due to scheduling and commitments, I had not been to a game in person in a few years. The scheduling stars aligned this past beautiful Friday night on the West Coast. The CUUW made an appearance at the UBC campus for a fun night of football. Enjoying the last of summer weather as the sun went down for the second half.
UBC and Manitoba wore usual uniforms. Nothing new (though I do love the underused brown and gold colour scheme worn by the Bisons). Therefore, we will take a look at some other games this weekend. Travelling east to west as the CUUW is noted to do.
In the Atlantic conference (AUS), we had the Axemen versus the X-Men in the rain in Antigonish, NS. What were they thinking? That is what came to mind when I saw this uniform matchup. The St. Francis Xavier X-Men wore navy over navy at home. Why would the Acadia Axemen bring their alternate anthracite uniforms as visitors? There was a lack of contrast between the teams with the navy versus anthracite on a drab day. Acadia usually looks good dressed in their regular red with navy blue trim. They don’t look good in anthracite over anthracite and need to get rid of these. The red numbers are hard to see.
In the Quebec conference (RSEQ), it was tout vert for the Sherbrooke Vert & Or at home. Green helmets, jerseys, and pants. Though they introduced a new white helmet last week, I see the visiting McGill Redbirds still have the red helmet. They went with a red/white/red combo on the road that looks mighty fine.
We will look at a couple of games in the Ontario conference (OUA) this week.
Oh my! We had another colour versus colour game. The Laurier Golden Hawks have new uniforms. They have updated the striping on the sleeves and pants. Wearing mono-purple at home in Waterloo on Saturday. The visiting Guelph Gryphons wore their black/red/black combo. (JV: I think I like this matchup!) Guelph is known to mix-and-match during a season. Hard to guess and fun to see what helmet/jersey/pant combo the Gryphons will wear next.
We will stay in Waterloo for another game. The Waterloo Warriors went with the yellow over black combo at home. Hard to go wrong with that colour scheme. The visiting Ottawa Gee-Gees wore white over garnet.
We continue our travels west to the Canada West conference.
Last week, the CUUW was critical of the new Regina Rams helmet when worn with the holdover gold alternate uniform. Well, the Regina Rams have a new home uniform that does match well with the change to the white horns and mask. They wore their new green over green uniforms on Friday. The best way to describe the new look? Less gold. Basically, it is green and white with a touch of gold trim. They aren’t the only Saskie school with new duds. The visiting Saskatchewan Huskies have some new uniforms too. Wearing white over white. A minimalist look to say the least for the Huskies. A couple of thin stripes on the sides of the pants on these green and white uniforms. Needs a bit more. Looks like practice jerseys to me.
That is a wrap! There appears to be a trend towards no striping on a lot of the new jerseys this year. Looking forward to next weekend’s games as schools look to pile on the wins and climb the standings.
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Thanks, Wade!
2024 Uni Tracking
Uni Watch will again track the combinations worn by college football conferences. Long-time trackers Rex Henry (tracking the ACC), and Dennis Bolt (now tracking the Big Teen) are returning, as is Zach Wooldridge (tracking the SEC). We’re working on a Big “XII” tracker at the moment.
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We begin with Rex and the All Coasts Conference with a couple of observations:
“2 Gold/White/Gold Sets with script helmets
3 White/Red/White with animal logo helmets”
Once again I’ll give you five really good matchups and the worst looking one of the week. Unlike most lists, it’s not an *exact* ranking. It’s the five matchups that caught my eye the most, then I rank those from 5 to 1. Agree or disagree, but either way let’s have some fun with it.
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It’s very rare when I look at the schedule early in the week and say to myself, “That right there is my number one matchup.” Well, it happened this week. And it’s also rare when I have to go three-quarters of the way through the schedule to find an &1 contender. Once I found it, though, there was no question. Let’s see who they are, shall we? We begin with…
5. The “Flash Of Two Worlds” Matchup:
St. Francis vs. Kent State
Instead of Jay Garrick and Barry Allen, we have the FCS Red Flash upsetting the (barely) FBS Golden Flashes.
4. The “It’s Also Rare When These Schools Make The Top Five, And They Did It Together!” Matchup:
Boise State vs. Oregon
Orange pants for the Broncos might have given this game a shot at the top.
3. The “Everbody Wins!” Matchup:
Eastern Kentucky vs. Western Kentucky
The Colonels get to break up Western’s whiteout plans, the Hilltoppers get the victory, and I get a much better looking game.
2. The “Are The Mustangs A Red Or Blue Team? Yes!” Game:
BYU vs. SMU
Love the red alternate jerseys, and this is one of the rare times where I don’t mind the Cougars in navy.
1. Simply The Best:
Cal vs. Auburn
Hats off to the Bears for breaking out the wonderful gold script helmets!
&1… Southern Utah vs. UTEP
A boring uni vs. white on camo is a slam dunk loser of a matchup.
That's It For Today...From Me...
But stay tuned, because now that you’ve savored all of the college football action from this weekend, get ready to feast on Phil’s Uni Watch 2024 NFL Uniform Preview! Enjoy that, and the rest of your Sunday, and I’ll see you next weekend. Take care, everyone.
We really aren’t big fans of frats here in Houston. Residential colleges were Rice’s alternative.
Gophers looked great yesterday. They nailed it with the uni updates this year. Also, they opened with home games vs. North Carolina and Rhode Island this year – two team with light blue in their color scheme. Kind of a rare quirk in uni scheduling.
Biker shorts galore. What a sh*tshow.
As a Buckeye I couldn’t be happier seeing Michigan look like garbage both aesthetically and tactically. Those drab navy pants matched their play. I’ll readily admit when they wear their classic (I’m not gonna refer to them by their color scheme) uniforms, they do look great. But the kit matched their effort.
Acadia vs St. FX. What a brutal looking game. Would love to be in the room when someone from Acadia proposes and others agree that bringing that uniform on the road to face a navy blue home team is a good idea. We can only assume that there is little to no thought given to a decision like that.
Mizzou is wrong *again*. The school has dropped the stripes on its black and white pants (unclear on the yellow pants). Get it fixed, Zach.
Hey Travis,
I must have missed the news about Mizzou dropping the stripes. Seems like they kept that one pretty low-key. I did a quick check before the season but didn’t find anything, and with a busy few weekends, I haven’t had the chance to catch every uniform update live. I’ll get it fixed though, thanks for pointing it out.
Again Mizzou is wrong in the SEC tracker. They didn’t wear stripes on the pants.
Why is it that Canadian Football League teams often wear the same colors as colleges that play in the same city? That all-Saskatchewan green matchup was the ultimate.
It’s happened for a few reasons. Here are some:
-Alberta Golden Bears have been playing since 1910. The current version of the pro Edmonton football team started play in 1949. The Edmonton Elks wear the same colours as U. of Alberta because the pro team bought their first uniforms from the university in 1949.
-Calgary is just a city where teams wear red. Traditionally, the Dinos have been red and yellow before adding black trim. Was a bit of a coincidence that the NHL Atlanta Flames wore red and yellow when they relocated to Calgary.
-Saskatchewan Huskies have played since 1912. Green is Saskatchewan’s colour. It’s on the provincial flag. It’s on license plates.
U. of Regina was a branch of U. of Saskatchewan until Regina became an independent university in 1974. Could have contributed to why the university is green also. The Saskatchewan Roughriders used to be black and red and needed to replace their wool uniforms. Only started wearing green and white because of the great deal the team got on a set of uniforms found at a surplus store in Chicago. The Riders legendary green and white origin was more by chance than design.
Getting even more complex. The Regina Rams football team used to play junior football before they became the university team in 1999. The junior Rams used to dress a lot more like the Roughriders than the U. of Regina team.
Iowa State @ Iowa with a nice ‘contrast matters’ match-up in the sun at Kinnick Stasium – link
*Stadium. YKWIM
Kinda shocked that Boise State/Oregon didn’t win #1 this week. No disrespect to Cal/Auburn but both of those schools always look good. The fact that BSU and UO looked amazing and resisted the urge to look horrible should have led to a win in my humble opinion.
Couldn’t stay up late enough to cover the USC/Utah State game. Any game with USC looks good if the other team doesn’t blow it, and Utah State looked good in their navy/white/navy.
Also, this went back to Monday, September 2, but you couldn’t cover the day before with what may be the best looking game of the year, with LSU vs USC. Besides both having some of the greatest CFB uniforms, it was a great setting with Allegiant Stadium being split in half with red and purple. I’ll know you have it out for SC if I don’t see the Michigan-USC game in two weeks
I was up late enough to see what Utah State/USC (and every other game) looked like and it was good. As were a lot of other matchups. It almost made the list.
And while Terry went back to Monday, I didn’t. Today I concentrated on Week 2 only, which was Friday and Saturday’s games. So yes, USC/LSU fell between the cracks. It happens.
Relax… it’s a long season and I’m sure your Trojans will be featured quite a few times. I don’t “have it in” for any school.
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeshigan totally screwed up what would have been a beautiful game…….
Are we missing some games?
I love Tulane vs Kansas State especially in the shadow cast near the end of the game.
Stanford in White/”Cardinal”/White vs. UC Cal Poly in Green/White/Green looked pretty clean. link
Minnesota Yellow Gophers would be more accurate, IMO
Google “athletic gold” and check the results.
Why does Michigan insist on wearing mono blue. I’m sure Coach Bo is rolling in his grave. Every time Michigan wears that combo
You’re not kidding. Michigan needs one pair of britches, yet they have 3 and choose the wrong pair far too often. MAIZE and blue, guys…
Please explain “residential college.” I’m too lazy to look it up, but it kinda looks like a Hogwarts thing?
Rather than me trying to explain it poorly:
link
We really aren’t big fans of frats here in Houston. Residential colleges were Rice’s alternative.
Gophers looked great yesterday. They nailed it with the uni updates this year. Also, they opened with home games vs. North Carolina and Rhode Island this year – two team with light blue in their color scheme. Kind of a rare quirk in uni scheduling.
Biker shorts galore. What a sh*tshow.
As a Buckeye I couldn’t be happier seeing Michigan look like garbage both aesthetically and tactically. Those drab navy pants matched their play. I’ll readily admit when they wear their classic (I’m not gonna refer to them by their color scheme) uniforms, they do look great. But the kit matched their effort.
Acadia vs St. FX. What a brutal looking game. Would love to be in the room when someone from Acadia proposes and others agree that bringing that uniform on the road to face a navy blue home team is a good idea. We can only assume that there is little to no thought given to a decision like that.
Mizzou is wrong *again*. The school has dropped the stripes on its black and white pants (unclear on the yellow pants). Get it fixed, Zach.
Hey Travis,
I must have missed the news about Mizzou dropping the stripes. Seems like they kept that one pretty low-key. I did a quick check before the season but didn’t find anything, and with a busy few weekends, I haven’t had the chance to catch every uniform update live. I’ll get it fixed though, thanks for pointing it out.
Again Mizzou is wrong in the SEC tracker. They didn’t wear stripes on the pants.
Navy wore the best unis I saw yesterday.
link
That game was on my short list, for sure.
I love it when Navy looks like Navy!
Why is it that Canadian Football League teams often wear the same colors as colleges that play in the same city? That all-Saskatchewan green matchup was the ultimate.
It’s happened for a few reasons. Here are some:
-Alberta Golden Bears have been playing since 1910. The current version of the pro Edmonton football team started play in 1949. The Edmonton Elks wear the same colours as U. of Alberta because the pro team bought their first uniforms from the university in 1949.
-Calgary is just a city where teams wear red. Traditionally, the Dinos have been red and yellow before adding black trim. Was a bit of a coincidence that the NHL Atlanta Flames wore red and yellow when they relocated to Calgary.
-Saskatchewan Huskies have played since 1912. Green is Saskatchewan’s colour. It’s on the provincial flag. It’s on license plates.
U. of Regina was a branch of U. of Saskatchewan until Regina became an independent university in 1974. Could have contributed to why the university is green also. The Saskatchewan Roughriders used to be black and red and needed to replace their wool uniforms. Only started wearing green and white because of the great deal the team got on a set of uniforms found at a surplus store in Chicago. The Riders legendary green and white origin was more by chance than design.
Getting even more complex. The Regina Rams football team used to play junior football before they became the university team in 1999. The junior Rams used to dress a lot more like the Roughriders than the U. of Regina team.
link.
Thanks for the insigh!
Iowa State @ Iowa with a nice ‘contrast matters’ match-up in the sun at Kinnick Stasium –
link
*Stadium. YKWIM
Kinda shocked that Boise State/Oregon didn’t win #1 this week. No disrespect to Cal/Auburn but both of those schools always look good. The fact that BSU and UO looked amazing and resisted the urge to look horrible should have led to a win in my humble opinion.
Couldn’t stay up late enough to cover the USC/Utah State game. Any game with USC looks good if the other team doesn’t blow it, and Utah State looked good in their navy/white/navy.
Also, this went back to Monday, September 2, but you couldn’t cover the day before with what may be the best looking game of the year, with LSU vs USC. Besides both having some of the greatest CFB uniforms, it was a great setting with Allegiant Stadium being split in half with red and purple. I’ll know you have it out for SC if I don’t see the Michigan-USC game in two weeks
I was up late enough to see what Utah State/USC (and every other game) looked like and it was good. As were a lot of other matchups. It almost made the list.
And while Terry went back to Monday, I didn’t. Today I concentrated on Week 2 only, which was Friday and Saturday’s games. So yes, USC/LSU fell between the cracks. It happens.
Relax… it’s a long season and I’m sure your Trojans will be featured quite a few times. I don’t “have it in” for any school.
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeshigan totally screwed up what would have been a beautiful game…….
Are we missing some games?
I love Tulane vs Kansas State especially in the shadow cast near the end of the game.
Stanford in White/”Cardinal”/White vs. UC Cal Poly in Green/White/Green looked pretty clean.
link