Good morning, everyone. Last night between birthday celebrations I had Johnny Gill singing in my head when I saw Rice’s latest alternate uniform. “My my my, my my my my, You sure look gooood tonight.” Seriously, how sweet is this? And UTSA was bringing it with those orange pants. The only thing that kept this game out of the Top Five was the Roadrunners’ number font. Sometimes I can overlook it, but this was a good week so I couldn’t. In fact, this week was so good that I only saw one clear-cut &1 in the entire slate of games. Do you think you know what it is? If not, you have time to ponder that as we go through the rest of Sunday Morning Uni Watch, beginning with the incomparable Terry Duroncelet.
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How have seven weeks flown by already?! Time is fake. Also, I want to address a huge gaffe from last week on my end: I mentioned that UTEP wore “El Chuco” decals in their game against Sam Houston. I… somehow missed the spellcheck, and wrote “El Cucho” instead of “El Chuco”. Needless to say, the moment I read my mistake, I just closed the tab in shame. My B.
From Thursday, October 10th
• LA Tech/Middle Tennessee: Apparently for LA Tech, this is the first time that they’ve ever worn a blue helmet. Appropriately against the Blue Raiders, to boot.
• WKU/UTEP: Contrast Matters: Conference USA cooks sometimes Edition. A matchup that surprised me with how EXCELLENT each team looked. UTEP has really embraced this pale shade of orange and made it their own, and Western Kentucky… well, take a LOOK for yourselves. EASILY the most fun helmets from Week 7, hands-down (and eyes wide-open). Hard to believe that just a decade or so ago, this was the norm for these two programs.
From Friday, October 11th
• Maryland/Northwestern: As mentioned last week, October is the month for uni combos that would normally draw TONS of scorn, so even though this game isn’t as colorful as it could’ve been, for this occasion, both teams understood the assignment.
• Utah State/UNLV: As shown with Aggies junior safety Ike Larsen on the left, Pinktober is alive and well. Speaking of Larsen, here’s another shot of him with Utah State’s retro decal that they wore for this game (closer look).
From Saturday, October 12th
• Alabama/South Carolina: The Crimson Tide –who’s looking more like the Watered-Down Cranberry Juice Tide this season– after selling to Vanderbilt in Week 6 harder than the hare did to the turtle, almost repeated the same mistake in Week 7 against South Carolina, who wore larger decals and MASSIVE helmet stripes (closer look, plus what their helmets typically look like).
• FAU/North Texas: WHOA, this is a game I wasn’t expecting to like the look of as much as I did! I don’t really talk about Florida Atlantic’s helmets all that much, but while the State outline is pretty cool, the palm tree on the other side is some of their best work. I kinda wish that they would use the palm tree on both sides of the helmet. Speaking of helmets, North Texas channeled their inner “hit the dorms and listen to Opeth and Korn after the game” with these helmet decals (closer look).
• Rutgers/Wisconsin: This game would’ve been the perfect inversion of each other if Sconnie had worn red facemasks on the white lids (to go against the Scarlet Knights’ white facemasks on red lids).
• Army/UAB: I find it funny that two teams known for their gold helmets decided that neither would be wearing said gold helmets in their matchup (yes, I’m aware that the Blazers don’t have a gold helmet this season). And honestly? I think they made the right choice (full gallery here). Side-note: I’m not into the whole “Tough-guy machismo” thing, but I’m gonna make an exception here: look at how TUFF this flag is. It’s peak scholastic football to my eyes.
• North Carolina/Georgia Tech: Throwbacks for the Tar Heels. One of the few light-vs-light games that’s hard to beat, even with Georgia Tech in white lids.
• West Virginia/Iowa State: West Virginia (say it with me now) understood the assignment. If you want to learn more about these “Coal Rush” unis, there’s a great writeup here. (JV: one of the best BFBS unis ever, and definitely the best Black For Bituminous’ Sake uni ever)
• Georgia State/Old Dominion: Contrast Matters: the Duke vs UNC matchup that we were robbed of this season Edition (this was literally the only decent pic of this game I could find).
• Northern Illinois/Bowling Green: Finding images for this game was nothing short of a futile nightmare, but the Bowling Green Falcons wore these really cool decals designed by kids in a contest (closer look)
• South Florida/Memphis: It’s nice to see South Florida get into the spirit of the month. Wearing these in the Florida heat is a bold move, however.
• Central Michigan/Ohio: The Chippewas wore FIRE UP decals on their helmets (closer look). Despite its 90s flavor, this is actually part of the “FIRE UP CHIPS” slogan from their Division II championship team from 1974.
• UCF/Cincinnati: It’s not really apparent, but Central Florida wore military decals on the back of their helmets (much better view here).
• Western Michigan/Akron: Western Michigan wore cancer awareness helmet stripes, with differing left-side decals on each helmet. (JV: And Akron wore their surrender flag all-whites…for the fifth straight road game)
• Nevada/Oregon State: The block ‘N’ returns for Nevada (closer look).
• Rice/UTSA: Rice continues to wave the flag for alternate looks that DEFINITELY ARE NOT A HINT TO A CERTAIN AFL FOUNDING MEMBER THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS.
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Thanks, Terry!
No love for Penn State vs. USC at the Coliseum? IMHO a more deserving choice for the 5&1 than UTEP vs. Western Kentucky.
Absolutely. The blood clot unis do nothing good for me, even if the helmets have googly eyes.
I agree and disagree!
Aesthetically, this was so so game. My mainbeef was the white decals in Utep lacked contrast.
Conceptually, the WKU helmets were amazing and innovative! On that basis alone deserving to be in the top 5. The unis were based on Big Red, they had to be mono red!
When Penn State wears blue pants on the road, I’ll consider them vs. USC at the Coliseum.
Penn State will wear blue pants on the road when pigs fly. BTW PSU-USC is a rare NNOB matchup.
The notion that PSU would look better on the road with white lids, white jerseys, and blue pants instead of all white is genuinely insane
It was very satisfying to see a team with no white whatsoever (USC) against a team with as much white as possible (PSU)
Great stuff, SMUW Crew! Those WKU helmets may be my new favorite helmet of all time! And Jim, thanks for calling out that cringey Georgia Southern tweet. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who for whom that’s a major pet peeve.
It’s bad enough that every school’s Twitter feed looks as if the same person is in charge of them…none of them know how to lengthen a word. Last week after an opponent’s missed FG, someone wrote “It’s wideeee!” instead of “wiiiide.”
Back on October 2, Phil said he’d be running Alex’s MLB Playoff Uniform (Jersey) Tracking Mon-Fri til the end of the World Series but I haven’t seen it since October 2. Anyone know where it’s displayed?
It’s a sub-lede on every weekday morning post. You need to scroll down and it’s in the first section following that day’s lede.
Interesting to learn that LA Tech has never worn the blue helmet. Would have thought this would have occurred by now.
I like the wider stripes on the helmets for South Carolina better.
Texas vs. Oklahoma has all the credentials to be No. 1.
Here for the Opeth shoutout lol!
USC/Penn State?
And possibly one of the best looking games of the year, BYU/Arizona.
Penn State on the road almost never* makes the Top Five.
*I want to say “never made” but I’d have to go back to research that, and I don’t have that much time on my hands.
Great job crew as always! The highlight of my Sunday mornings!!
Do you have a larger version of the SEC uniforms tracker you could post? The current one is blurry (unless it’s my phone or old eyes).
Thanks for the great content!
It’s a very small graphic. There’s a note that Zach is out of town and David Staples filled in for him. If David has a larger graphic and can post a link to it, I can swap in a larger graphic.
“I… somehow missed the spellcheck, and wrote “El Cucho” instead of “El Chuco”
– Those are the exact same. What am I missing?
– Also, I noticed some of the college uni-trackers are using the word “Bye.” To me, the Yankees and Guardians had “byes” because they earned them. College teams simply schedule a week off.
CUCHO vs. CHUCO
“coocho” vs “chew-co”
same five letters, but they’re arranged differently (and probably a very easy mistake to make)
I like the larger helmet stripes SO much better for South Carolina. Keep those and make the sleeve stripes match. Get rid of the child sized numbers and replace them with single color adult varsity block and the Gamecocks are one of the best dressed teams in the country.
I don’t mind the current number font, but definitely make the numbers as properly sized as those helmet stripes were.
I’m convinced Jim is either blind or has no clue what “good looking” means.
Good looking is a matter of opinion. Jim and I clash frequently over what constitutes “good looking” — doesn’t mean either of us is right. It’s what looks good to our eyes.
Disagree on the objectiveness of good-looking. We have an understanding of what beauty is and it crosses cultures. There are colors that work and don’t.
Glad that LSU & Ole Miss decided not to mess with perfection. The contrast is sublime, head to toe.
Jim, I predicted the Ole Miss/LSU game making the 5 & 1. I had no idea it was going to be #1! Why Kiffin continues to wear the solid white pants is beyond me, Ole Miss has a SOLID uniform. Home and Away.
UTEP may be leaning into a lighter shade of orange… but that looks a lot like Tennessee orange, gonna be tough to claim it as their own.
Jimmer Vilk, that Richfield Coliseum hat is amazing. I also love that you used the MISL red/orange soccer ball painted on the wall almost perfect color.