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Good morning, everyone. I made it home from work earlier than anticipated last night, so I got to enjoy a little Pac-“12” After Dark. And I enjoyed this color vs. color matchup between UNLV and Oregon State. Normally, I don’t like white numbers on gray jerseys, but the Rebels got the right shade of gray so I could see the numbers just fine. The red pants (which match the sweatpants I’m wearing as I type this) were a nice touch as well. The Beavers, of course, look good in any of their combos…except for when they wear those Tootsie Pop-looking orange helmets. Add it all up and you get a Top Somewhere Between Seven and Ten matchup. As for who made the Top Five, we’ll find out at the end of Sunday Morning Uni Watch. Now let’s begin with the unparalleled Terry Duroncelet, who’s jumping right into it this week. Take it away, Terry!
From Tuesday
• Middle Tennessee/Kennesaw State: Spooky Season look for MTSU. The white helmets take it out of the element, however. At least they got into the spirit of the month.
From Saturday
• Notre Dame/Georgia Tech: Remember when I said back in Week 5 “The white pants are… INTERESTING. I’m not sure if I’d like them with their regular garb.”? …The Fighting Irish woke up and chose violence.
• Illinois/Michigan: The fact that when I tuned into this game and noticed how vintage the uniforms felt just from that one big audience shot that you see all the time, should be a testament to how effective these unis were at their job. Great stuff.
• Army/East Carolina: Cadet greys for Army West Point.
• Old Dominion/Texas State: Speaking of sweet decals, check out what Old Dominion wore against the Texas State Bobcats (closer look). Also in that same photo: not to be outdone, Texas State became DAAAAAAAAAAAA ‘CATS (how many times can I make this joke this year?).
• Arizona/Colorado: I know the Saints wore one of their only 2 good uniforms a few days ago (we all know what the other one is), but it’s still a crying shame that Colorado at times seems to look more like the Saints than, well, the Saints. Stop the old gold erasure! Oh, and Arizona wore some fun decals in this same game.
• San José State/Wyoming: At first, I thought to myself “is this gonna be a gold trou extravaganza?”, but Wyoming surprised me with the brown pants, which made for a great-looking game.
• Arkansas/LSU: Full-whites for LSU in the Golden Boot game.
• Stanford/SMU: Even <strike>the Cardinal</strike> Stanford is getting into the holiday spirit! Funny how both of these schools were playing in totally different conferences only a year ago.
Returning for 2024 is Wade Heidt, who’s wearing a jersey 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.
…..
It’s about that time. Time for some university football uniform watching, Canadian rules style! It’s time for the CUUW!
If the CUUW said it, the CUUW meant it. Not shy to call out uniforms the CUUW likes and doesn’t like. Always here to monitor looks until the end of the U Sports football season. The season end is getting close. This was the last weekend of the regular season in the Ontario conference. The three other conferences will wrap up their regular seasons next weekend.
Shall we travel east to west across Canada as the CUUW is famous for? Of course we will!
*We will start in the Quebec conference (RSEQ). In Montreal, the Concordia Stingers wore their great looking burgundy over yellow combo as the home team. I wish the Stingers would go with just one logo on their helmets. I prefer the clever “C” logo with the stinger compared to the large cartoonish one on the other side of the helmet. The visiting Montreal Carabins went full white from head-to-toe. Montreal has been entertaining the CUUW with the multiple combos this year.
*Over to the Ontario conference (OUA) we go. The Western Mustangs wore purple over purple at home in London. Their basic home uniforms. This school really needs to bring back a pair of grey pants. The visiting Windsor Lancers looked solid wearing white over yellow.
Since Canada West had last weekend off, we will shift much of the attention to the schools in the west.
*It was a battle of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Which means a lot of green. The Saskatchewan Huskies went with their green over white combo at home. Notice in the photo an interesting detail on the Huskies pants for some players. You can see a couple with the paw and their numbers on the thigh pad areas. The Regina Rams wore white over green on the road. We haven’t seen the white over green often with this new uniform design this season.
*In Edmonton, the Alberta Golden Bears wore white at home. All white from head-to-toe. The visiting Manitoba Bisons brought their usual home uniform. They wore black over black. The Bisons have a confusing visual brand. The school uses brown and black. The football team wears only brown and gold with their white jerseys. Their home look is a much different design going black with gold and minimal brown trim. I’m a proponent for the Bisons to bring back brown jerseys. Please ditch the black and get some consistency in the looks at home and on the road.
*Fall football weather arrived in Vancouver. Friday night football in an atmospheric river! The UBC Thunderbirds brought back alternate black uniforms for this game. It was black over black for UBC. Definitely BFBS since it is not a school colour. They already regularly wear quite dark navy-over-navy uniforms. Would rather seem them bring back some royal blue and yellow uniforms. These black alternates have been worn in the past with a different helmet. The uniforms feature yellow numbers trimmed with blue and the school’s interlocking “BC” logo on the sleeves. The visiting Calgary Dinos went with their red/white/white combo for the rain-soaked game.
That’s it for this week! We get closer to the playoffs when we’ll dance the dance. On the way to one shining star that will hoist the Vanier Cup at the end of the journey.
…..
Thanks, Wade!
2024 Uni Tracking
Uni Watch will again track the combinations worn by the Power Four 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). This year Derek Buchheit will be tracking the Big “XII” for us.
…..
We begin with Rex and the ACC:
“Stanford looks an awful lot like South Carolina today, and the Virginia Tech/Boston College and Duke/Florida State games should be considered for top 5.” (JV: They were considered)
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.
…..
I had a near-death experience yesterday. I almost died from boredom watching the halftime highlights during the noon window of games. Twelve of the 13 contests featured a uni with white jerseys and pants (thank you, Tulsa, for keeping it from being a “clean” sweep). I decided to track the entire Week Eight schedule, and discovered that 30 of the 59 games (that’s right, more than half) had a team in white over white. Sixteen of those 30 teams wore white helmets as well. If that wasn’t bad enough, this was a week where Nebraska, LSU, and UCLA didn’t look like Nebraska, LSU, and UCLA. I’m all for a little variety, but not from those schools. While some of the all-white unis looked good, you won’t find any in this week’s celebration of color that is the Top Five. Let’s see who made the cut, beginning with…
5. The “I’m In The Mood For A Burger Now” Matchup:
USC vs. Maryland
A little mustard and a lot of ketchup here!
4. The “Leaping Leatherheads, Those Are Great Helmets!” Game:
Michigan vs. Illinois
I’m so glad the Illini honored the Galloping Ghost with these throwbacks, instead of wearing icy whites to honor the Wheaton Ice Man…
3. The “Brown Pants Alert!” Game:
Western Michigan vs….Buffalo?
The usually bad-looking Bulls looked as good as I’ve ever seen them.
2. The “Optimal Contrast” Matchup:
Kansas State vs. West Virginia
Who needs maximum contrast when these classic unis hit the sweet spot?
1. Simply The Best:
Rice vs. Tulane
I love both helmets, and that’s a good amount of green for the Green Wave.
&1…Troy vs. South Alabama
I keep wanting to put Louisville in this spot, but their font is slightly better than the Jaguars’, and Miami looked better than Troy.
And Now, My Weekend Begins
That will do it for today. I finally have tonight off from my other job, so I’m going to relax as much as I can. Hopefully I’ll have more time than Baldrick did in Black Adder the Third. And hopefully you’ll have a nice and easy Sunday. Take care, everyone, and I’ll see you next weekend.
Rex needs to fix his ACC Tracker and change Notre Dame to white pants.
Why are they even on it. ND only has a scheduling deal with the ACC for football. They aren’t in the conference.
I’m fixing the pants right now. I added Notre Dame because they are a non-football ACC member/play 5 ACC games a year…and for the symmetry of my graphic.
Fixed. Thanks!
Great job crew! I’m going to call it- Illinois has the best throwbacks of all time!
Yeah that helmet work is amazing. Looks legit like they are wearing leather helmets out there.
I was skeptical about how they’d look in real life, but they were awesome. The helmet is great, and the jerseys are great, too. Probably my favorite college football throwback.
If they’d gotten the pants just a bit browner for that canvas look it would have been perfect.
I wish Michigan had worn the yellow pants to get as close to that as possible.
ND in white pants looks like a Rudy practice scene.
And tone down those silly gold helmets. Way over the top.
Yes. Thank you.
Love that Tulane Green Wave look. Underused great colour scheme of the dark green and light blue.
Rice could have upped the ante by wearing gray/silver pants…but there’s no denying that was a great looking game.
Concordia/Montreal was an A-1 uniform matchup too, even if the Stingers mismatching the dome decals.
I would hate their helmet logo, but their color scheme and striping are always so good that I give it a pass. This is one of their best combinations, too.
Wow, those really do look like Tootsie Pops…
I’m never into the fake leather look helmets. It looks silly to me. Just make the helmet a nice leathery brown color and skip the faux stitching gimmick.
Also I see how “ick! BFBS! Kill it!” Becomes “look at them getting into the spirit of the season!”
Washington used a faux leather wrap for that effect in an NFL game years ago and it looked spectacular, although their heads also kind of looked like footballs.
I remember that game and that’s actually what I was envisioning. You are correct on the footballhead look, but I think it looks better than the airbrushed leather panel look. Also, details matter. The packers did a brown shell for a throwback look but it was just a glossy milk chocolate brown and it looked odd. A glossy shell feels like it’s supposed to be a team color to me.
If you like burgers, those Calgary Dinos sleeves fit the bill, though they could also be top-down hot dogs.
Dino-burgers, a la the Flintstones!
Someone in UC’s chain of production *had* to have known what the final product was going to resemble. The symmetry is just too perfect to have them be that accidental. Mr. Heidt, perhaps further investigation into the Dinos’ sleeves origins is in order?
LOL! Never really thought about that or looked at it that way during this season with these new jerseys. U. of Calgary Athletic Dept. probably haven’t thought about it either. Or have they? Would be interesting to see what response I might get if I shoot them an email about this. Nike is the uniform provider for Calgary Dinos football. In the meantime, we can blame Nike. Maybe subliminal messaging trying to sell food at the game?
I don’t know if this is happening to anyone else but, I seem to be getting Norton blocking a lot of attempted redirects, hijacks and the like from — I presume — advertisements appearing on this website. It’s starting to make me a little anxious about coming here in the event that one of these gets missed and turns my desktop into a useless paperweight.
Recommend installing uBlock Origin, will prevent all of that. I don’t even come here on mobile anymore – 50% of the time I try to click on a link or post a comment I get redirected to an advertisement.
This is what I use, too. It also works well on YouTube ads.
Will look into it. Thanks for the advice.
That Illinois/Michigan game has to be #1, and in contention for the best of the year. Sure Michigan would have looked better in maize pants, but this was still pretty great. Two hours to paint each helmet is crazy.
Not a big fan of Michigan ever choosing blue over yellow trousers, but in this case I think it improved the overall look of the game by toning down the colors. Their regular maize against the bright orange-tan of Illinois could have been too much.
Hey Jim! I am glad that you gave worthy kudos to the K-State at WVU game. Both teams dressed out fabulous, especially well for their night game. Rice and Tulane made for a great looking game for sure. But …
Illinois’ Galloping Ghost togs — and the helmets, wow — were just fabulous! It was cool that the CBS crew got into the spirit of 1924 as well. I kept thinking about Michigan’s choice of blue pants, if the maize would look better, but their blue/white/blue really provided some pop to the Illini’s pale (but still awesome) roaring ’20s set.
It could have been the worst other team uni around and the Illini still should have been first. That is an all-time great uniform.
That Illinois uniform belongs in the UW Hall of Fame, if there ever will be one.
Rex needs to fix his ACC Tracker and change Notre Dame to white pants.
Why are they even on it. ND only has a scheduling deal with the ACC for football. They aren’t in the conference.
I’m fixing the pants right now. I added Notre Dame because they are a non-football ACC member/play 5 ACC games a year…and for the symmetry of my graphic.
Fixed. Thanks!
Great job crew! I’m going to call it- Illinois has the best throwbacks of all time!
Yeah that helmet work is amazing. Looks legit like they are wearing leather helmets out there.
I was skeptical about how they’d look in real life, but they were awesome. The helmet is great, and the jerseys are great, too. Probably my favorite college football throwback.
If they’d gotten the pants just a bit browner for that canvas look it would have been perfect.
I wish Michigan had worn the yellow pants to get as close to that as possible.
ND in white pants looks like a Rudy practice scene.
And tone down those silly gold helmets. Way over the top.
Yes. Thank you.
Love that Tulane Green Wave look. Underused great colour scheme of the dark green and light blue.
Rice could have upped the ante by wearing gray/silver pants…but there’s no denying that was a great looking game.
Concordia/Montreal was an A-1 uniform matchup too, even if the Stingers mismatching the dome decals.
I would hate their helmet logo, but their color scheme and striping are always so good that I give it a pass. This is one of their best combinations, too.
Wow, those really do look like Tootsie Pops…
I’m never into the fake leather look helmets. It looks silly to me. Just make the helmet a nice leathery brown color and skip the faux stitching gimmick.
Also I see how “ick! BFBS! Kill it!” Becomes “look at them getting into the spirit of the season!”
Washington used a faux leather wrap for that effect in an NFL game years ago and it looked spectacular, although their heads also kind of looked like footballs.
I remember that game and that’s actually what I was envisioning. You are correct on the footballhead look, but I think it looks better than the airbrushed leather panel look. Also, details matter. The packers did a brown shell for a throwback look but it was just a glossy milk chocolate brown and it looked odd. A glossy shell feels like it’s supposed to be a team color to me.
If you like burgers, those Calgary Dinos sleeves fit the bill, though they could also be top-down hot dogs.
Dino-burgers, a la the Flintstones!
Someone in UC’s chain of production *had* to have known what the final product was going to resemble. The symmetry is just too perfect to have them be that accidental. Mr. Heidt, perhaps further investigation into the Dinos’ sleeves origins is in order?
LOL! Never really thought about that or looked at it that way during this season with these new jerseys. U. of Calgary Athletic Dept. probably haven’t thought about it either. Or have they? Would be interesting to see what response I might get if I shoot them an email about this. Nike is the uniform provider for Calgary Dinos football. In the meantime, we can blame Nike. Maybe subliminal messaging trying to sell food at the game?
I don’t know if this is happening to anyone else but, I seem to be getting Norton blocking a lot of attempted redirects, hijacks and the like from — I presume — advertisements appearing on this website. It’s starting to make me a little anxious about coming here in the event that one of these gets missed and turns my desktop into a useless paperweight.
Recommend installing uBlock Origin, will prevent all of that. I don’t even come here on mobile anymore – 50% of the time I try to click on a link or post a comment I get redirected to an advertisement.
This is what I use, too. It also works well on YouTube ads.
Will look into it. Thanks for the advice.
That Illinois/Michigan game has to be #1, and in contention for the best of the year. Sure Michigan would have looked better in maize pants, but this was still pretty great. Two hours to paint each helmet is crazy.
Not a big fan of Michigan ever choosing blue over yellow trousers, but in this case I think it improved the overall look of the game by toning down the colors. Their regular maize against the bright orange-tan of Illinois could have been too much.
Hey Jim! I am glad that you gave worthy kudos to the K-State at WVU game. Both teams dressed out fabulous, especially well for their night game. Rice and Tulane made for a great looking game for sure. But …
Illinois’ Galloping Ghost togs — and the helmets, wow — were just fabulous! It was cool that the CBS crew got into the spirit of 1924 as well. I kept thinking about Michigan’s choice of blue pants, if the maize would look better, but their blue/white/blue really provided some pop to the Illini’s pale (but still awesome) roaring ’20s set.
It could have been the worst other team uni around and the Illini still should have been first. That is an all-time great uniform.
That Illinois uniform belongs in the UW Hall of Fame, if there ever will be one.