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Good morning, everyone. What you see above is the first game of this week’s schedule: Tuesday night’s MACtion rivalry featuring my alma mater and my sister’s. The Akron Zips and Kent State Golden Flashes said, “Hey, let’s look like Central Connecticut State vs. Long Island, only slightly better.” They did…ever so slightly. What you also see is the rivalry trophy, the Wagon Wheel. Personally, I preferred the Steel-Tire Trophy from the old Akron/Youngstown State rivalry, but this one’s nice. And it puts Darius Rucker in my head, so that’s even nicer. Know what’s really really nice? Kicking off another Sunday Morning Uni Watch with our own Terry Duroncelet. Take it away, Terry!
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LOTS of fantastic-looking games from Week 13. Let’s do some gazing, shall we?
• Georgia Tech/NC State: Straight white and gold with no keylines to define what’s what doesn’t work in a lot of cases, but it sure worked here on Georgia Tech’s helmets (closer look). From that same game: the black for NC State would’ve been fine if they wore this combo, but we of course, live in the worst timeline. (JV: Agree to disagree)
From Friday, November 22nd
• UTSA/Temple: The Roadrunners liked last week’s 1930s cartoon look against North Texas so much, they decided to run it back, but made even worse with black pants, yay!
• Michigan State/Purdue: Black and green for a sick RenFair outfit, is awesome. Black and green in the way Michigan State approached it on Friday night? What’s the point in helmet decals that you can barely perceive? “Didn’t you say there were some great-looking games this week? WHERE ARE THEY?!” Patience, we’re about to get into it…
From Saturday, November 23rd
• Arizona State/BYU: One of many for the visual books. Always a treat to see Sparky on the lids.
• Clemson/The Citadel: Clemson wore their military appreciation purple unis against The Citadel (tell me that name isn’t the coolest).
• South Carolina/Wofford: The Gamecocks wore their Stars-and-Stripes unis (I’m calling them this because of the front-facing stars and the BIG-ASS helmet stripes) against Wofford.
• Liberty/WKU: Liberty wore decals in recognition of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Here’s a good shot of the 80 decal from the back of the lid.
• Cal/Stanford: A fantastic game between two teams who are playing in the correct conference, if this was Bizzaro World. Cal’s helmets were lots of fun. But seriously, they couldn’t operate as independents for a year or two??
• Houston/Baylor: I LOVE Houston choosing calm, but firm passive-aggressiveness in the wake of the light blue situation (backstory to bring the uninitiated up to speed). “Yeah, we’ll tweak the design a tad, but we’re still gonna stand on business.”
• LSU/Vanderbilt: LSU in gold. Considering how weird this year has been for them, SURE, why not?
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.
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You know what time it is. Time for some university football uniform watching Canadian rules style! It is time for the CUUW!
This is it. The national championship game was on Saturday. Only two schools left to battle it out for the coveted Vanier Cup.
Again this season, Queen’s University hosted the national championship game. The game was played at Richardson Stadium in Kingston, ON. A cloudy day and good fall football weather in Kingston. The Laurier Golden Hawks against the Laval Rouge et Or. These schools have never met each other in the Vanier Cup until now.
The Uteck Bowl winners wore their home uniforms in this year’s game. The Laurier Golden Hawks were not going to change combos at this point. Wearing the combo they wore for home playoff games on their way to the big dance. It was mono-purple from the helmets to the pants. The Laval Rouge et Or had the same idea about keeping a consistent combo. Wearing the same combo they sported on the road in the Mitchell Bowl. Laval went with their gold/white/red combo. Laval notably has small letters on the nameplates.
A close, entertaining game. Defences played strong. The team minimizing turnovers and mistakes would win. The final score was 22-17.
Congratulations to the Laval Rouge et Or! The Quebec powerhouse football program celebrating their 12th Vanier Cup. It is the all-time wins record by a school in Vanier Cup history. All these titles coming since 1999. The undefeated Laurier Golden Hawks suffering their first loss of the season in the very last game of the season.
Next year, the Vanier Cup game will move to Western Canada. The game in 2025 will be at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, SK.
It has been an eventful season. I look forward to next year. You never know what is in store for how the uniforms will change. That’s why the CUUW keeps watching. Also, you never know which schools will surprise you and emerge unexpectedly to greater success.
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Thanks, Wade, and thanks to both teams for a great looking matchup! We’ll see Wade again next week for one final CUUW report.
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.
“The best uniform matchups, in my opinion, are ones that include:
– Home team wearing a primary color for their helmet, a different primary color for their jersey, then the same color as the helmet for the pants
– Same for away, but with a white jersey
– No overlapping colors
– Each “level” of uniform being unique (different colored helmets/pants for each team)
– Color palettes are completely unique
BYU vs. Arizona State fits this to a T. What a BEAUTIFUL game! It’s definitely in my personal 5&1 for this season.
Outside of the few teams that went mono-white, the rest of the Big 12 looked good too. Those Houston blues are gorgeous.”
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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The NCAA has rules. A lot of them. Some of them concern numbers. And they’re quite specific when it comes to legibility. But they don’t enforce them. They don’t care. Notre Dame bloggers (“Yes the numbers were a little tough to read — but oh well”) don’t care. Notre Dame’s social media fanbase, who lashed out at me for a tweet I made four months ago merely suggesting the NCAA enforce the rules, doesn’t care. Heck, a number of people who read this blog don’t care. I’m tired of caring…and yet I do, so I’m back with another 5&1 list. No, I won’t put Army/Notre Dame in the &1 out of spite. At least the Black Knights cared, plus I found a worse-looking matchup where neither team did. Let’s celebrate the good-looking matchups first, beginning with…
5. The “Welcome Back To The Top Five, Bearcats” Game:
Cincinnati vs. Kansas State
Been a while since we’ve seen Cincy on the good side, eh?
4. The “Thank Goodness For Colorful Matchups And Collapsible Goalposts” Game:
Brigham Young vs. Arizona State
Speaking of rules…I know storming the field (especially twice) is frowned upon, but what about hoodies under jerseys?
3. The “I Liked This A Lot Better Than I Thought I Would” Matchup:
Vanderbilt vs. LSU
If Vandy had worn gold pants, I might have put this game at number one.
2. The “You Can Never Have Too Many Gold Pants, Especially When They’re Different Shades” Matchup:
USC vs. UCLA
Coach Foster needs to bring back the more readable script that Player Foster wore if he wants this game to reclaim its rightful place at the top.
1. Simply The Best:
Iowa vs. Maryland
Script-tacular and stripe-tacular!
&1…North Carolina State vs. Georgia Tech
The only thing good about this howling wreck of a matchup was NC State’s helmets.
Enjoy The Rest Of Your Sunday
Have a great day, and a great Phil-filled week. Take care, everyone, and I’ll see you next weekend.
After far too many years with uniforms that were “interesting”, it’s hard to believe how many times Maryland has made the top five this season including three times as Simply The Best. I hope that they stick with these uniforms for a long time. The script “Terps” and the stripes worked well in the 80’s and they still work well today.
As a Notre Dame fan, I hated the Shamrock Series unis. In fact, I’ve hated most of the Shamrock Series unis. These were particularly bad, IMO. They had two of my least favorite uni features: monochromatic base layer and completely illegible numbers.
Too much blue and bright red on those Kansas unis. One dominant color, accented by the other, would have been okay. Then there’s the cartoonish Jayhawk, and the KANSAS letters on the front, which can be seen from the space station. A bit too overboard…..
And IMO, Colorado in white/white/white with shiny gold numbers made this game hard to watch
The BFBS USF jerseys are really hilarious when you consider it to be almost identity theft of their cross state rivals UCF.
Great job crew! I liked the additional commentary on the ticker!
Two thoughts:
I like G-tech’s gold on white, and think that pushes the NC State game out of the and 1.
Coastal Carolina v. Georgia Southern should be the and 1! Love the Chanticleers, but all black and their green is a crime.
Thank you Jim, I love this on Sunday mornings. Question, does anyone know why asu doesn’t stick solely with Sparky? It is such a nice logo
Thank *you*!
Not sure why Sparky is relegated to part time. Actually I prefer the logo that was on the pants, but for such a bright colorful matchup, Sparky kind of seemed appropriate.
I’m not 100% certain, and maybe you can check with Cole Streeper (ASU uniform guy), but I think Sparky only makes an appearance once (or maybe twice) a year on the helmets, and it’s almost always in the team’s penultimate or final game (or final home game) of the season. I agree he should be THE only helmet logo, but the team has some kind of uni protocol going with Sparky on the hats.
Thank you Jim and Phil for the information. Hope you have a good thanksgiving with family/friends.
LSU’s gold jerseys were half-assed, which is fitting because the white helmets and white pants are half-assed, and the program itself just seems to do things in a half-assed way these days. The gold jerseys didn’t have the same “58” numeral fonts the white and purple jerseys have but just a generic block font, the nameplate fonts seemed to be different than the white and purple jersey nameplate fonts, and the striping patterns on the white helmets and white pants are different than the jersey striping patterns because of the insistence of the minute gold stripe inside the purple stripe on the helmets and pants. And the numbers and names were two-color, which is different from the one-color style of the white and purple jerseys.
The white helmets and pants suck no matter what jerseys they wear with them because of the extra gold stripe and the giant white stripe in the middle. Having a giant white stripe in the middle of a striping pattern on a white helmet or a white pair of pants is just stupid (also talking to you, Florida).
Speaking as an LSU alum and lifelong fan, LSU needs one helmet (gold or canary yellow, whatever you want to call it), and one pair of pants (same color as the helmet). Somehow, we got along fine with one helmet and one pair of pants for 40+years. If you want to add the jersey they wore last night, fine, though highly unnecessary with gorgeous white and purple jerseys. But if you keep the gold jersey around, clean up the inconsistent mess that it is.
Can we please stop calling yellow “gold”. USC wears yellow. LSU wears yellow. The Packers wear yellow. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is.
Yellow is what the Rams (Sol) and Oregon wear. Athletic gold, or “GOLD” in the teams’ own parlance, is what the Trojans, Packers and Tigers wear.
Your reason for not having the USC/UCLA game #1, is ridiculous. This game is not only #1 yesterday, it’s #1 the entire year. And I’d have had the ASU/BYU up higher. Both teams looked great, and the contrast was fantastic.
Until ucla fixes the gold mask on the helmet they shouldn’t be number 1
I don’t have any affiliation to either LA school I just know that that ucla helmet looks atrocious with the all gold helmet and mask I prefer the gold hat grey mask look
Come on Jim, you can do better than this old take. And it really is a compliment.
Nah, this game should look much better than it did yesterday. Things that dragged it down:
UCLA ‘s too-small numbers, too-light script, wrong shade of blue, gold facemask, and all the tan yoga pants.
USC with a bunch of guys wearing big bird yoga pants, when yellow tights should not even be an option for them.
Be sure to remember your “you can never wear to many shades of gold pants” comment next weekend
UCLA should have worn blue socks. The “nude stocking” look was no bueno….
Wade again takes the Botté d’envoi and runs over Ligne des buts and wins the game! Thanks for the update.
My Mom is a huge Notre Dame fan and she could barely stomach watching that game. That should be “& 1” of the year, just for those clown costumes.
TJ is not only the sharpest dressed uniform watcher, he’s sharp, humorous, accurate in analysis. I crush TJ.
If LSU had gone with purple helmets and pants it would have been perfection.
I read “sick RenFair outfit” as “sick RicFlair outfit” for some reason, obviously I was confused for a second…
LSU yesterday was a downgrade. Not terrible, but I really would rather just see those beautiful purple jerseys with yellow helmets and pants instead of alternates.
There’s a pretty good argument to be made that Wisconsin – Nebraska should be mono red vs mono white.
Cal-Stanford should probably be color vs color.
GT-NCState and Notre Dame – Army were a solid tie for the & 1
ASU – BYU #1. Sun Devils should rock those unis week-in/week-out.
Satisfying symmetry in both teams’ uniforms. Only thing missing from both were contrasting socks.
Zero problem with the & 1 selection.
NCSU can do black well … the all-black is solid as is the the red/black/red/black. Some years ago, they even did black/red/black/not sure what the socks/leggings were. Worked well … and yes, better than what Michigan State just rolled out against Purdue. NCSU’s red jerseys have enough black trim and such to make the combination work better.
But that attempt at something different in Atlanta needs to be shelved. Worse, given the multiple helmet and pants options, why wear white when Georgia Tech comes out in all white unis? Makes no sense.
Don’t worry Jim, I’ll die right next to you on the legibility hill. Numbers should be legible from a distance, full stop.
After looking at the LSU photo, it made me realize how many players were doing the mock Zeke Elliot look without showing their midriff. It was really annoying. When is the NCAA going to mandate how to properly wear a uniform? Oh, they can’t now. These players are getting paid more $ than most of the NCAA higher ups. Guess we are just going to have to accept bicycle shorts/untucked undershirts/midriff jerseys.
Bama and OU were even harder to tell apart than Wisconsin and Nebraska. If ever there was a good game for an alternate jersey, that might have been it.
Funny thing with that — even though both teams wear crimson, Alabama’s helmets better matched OU’s jerseys than did OU’s helmets.
Red pants >mono purple…Bien joué, Laval!
And thank you Wade for covering these Canadian college programs and their uniforms!
Houston’s LYBFLYBS looked great – no argument there. Hope this was just a phase…or maybe they’ll be considered ‘bad luck blues’ given the final score.
Loved the LSU gold jerseys, but I think they would have really popped if they would have haad purple pants (which, to my knowledge, LSU has only ever worn once).
After far too many years with uniforms that were “interesting”, it’s hard to believe how many times Maryland has made the top five this season including three times as Simply The Best. I hope that they stick with these uniforms for a long time. The script “Terps” and the stripes worked well in the 80’s and they still work well today.
As a Notre Dame fan, I hated the Shamrock Series unis. In fact, I’ve hated most of the Shamrock Series unis. These were particularly bad, IMO. They had two of my least favorite uni features: monochromatic base layer and completely illegible numbers.
Too much blue and bright red on those Kansas unis. One dominant color, accented by the other, would have been okay. Then there’s the cartoonish Jayhawk, and the KANSAS letters on the front, which can be seen from the space station. A bit too overboard…..
And IMO, Colorado in white/white/white with shiny gold numbers made this game hard to watch
The BFBS USF jerseys are really hilarious when you consider it to be almost identity theft of their cross state rivals UCF.
Great job crew! I liked the additional commentary on the ticker!
Two thoughts:
I like G-tech’s gold on white, and think that pushes the NC State game out of the and 1.
Coastal Carolina v. Georgia Southern should be the and 1! Love the Chanticleers, but all black and their green is a crime.
Thank you Jim, I love this on Sunday mornings. Question, does anyone know why asu doesn’t stick solely with Sparky? It is such a nice logo
Thank *you*!
Not sure why Sparky is relegated to part time. Actually I prefer the logo that was on the pants, but for such a bright colorful matchup, Sparky kind of seemed appropriate.
I’m not 100% certain, and maybe you can check with Cole Streeper (ASU uniform guy), but I think Sparky only makes an appearance once (or maybe twice) a year on the helmets, and it’s almost always in the team’s penultimate or final game (or final home game) of the season. I agree he should be THE only helmet logo, but the team has some kind of uni protocol going with Sparky on the hats.
Thank you Jim and Phil for the information. Hope you have a good thanksgiving with family/friends.
LSU’s gold jerseys were half-assed, which is fitting because the white helmets and white pants are half-assed, and the program itself just seems to do things in a half-assed way these days. The gold jerseys didn’t have the same “58” numeral fonts the white and purple jerseys have but just a generic block font, the nameplate fonts seemed to be different than the white and purple jersey nameplate fonts, and the striping patterns on the white helmets and white pants are different than the jersey striping patterns because of the insistence of the minute gold stripe inside the purple stripe on the helmets and pants. And the numbers and names were two-color, which is different from the one-color style of the white and purple jerseys.
The white helmets and pants suck no matter what jerseys they wear with them because of the extra gold stripe and the giant white stripe in the middle. Having a giant white stripe in the middle of a striping pattern on a white helmet or a white pair of pants is just stupid (also talking to you, Florida).
Speaking as an LSU alum and lifelong fan, LSU needs one helmet (gold or canary yellow, whatever you want to call it), and one pair of pants (same color as the helmet). Somehow, we got along fine with one helmet and one pair of pants for 40+years. If you want to add the jersey they wore last night, fine, though highly unnecessary with gorgeous white and purple jerseys. But if you keep the gold jersey around, clean up the inconsistent mess that it is.
Can we please stop calling yellow “gold”. USC wears yellow. LSU wears yellow. The Packers wear yellow. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is.
LSU Official Colors: Purple & Gold (link)
USC Official Colors: Cardinal & Gold (link)
Packers Official Colors: Dark Green & Gold (link)
Yellow is what the Rams (Sol) and Oregon wear. Athletic gold, or “GOLD” in the teams’ own parlance, is what the Trojans, Packers and Tigers wear.
Your reason for not having the USC/UCLA game #1, is ridiculous. This game is not only #1 yesterday, it’s #1 the entire year. And I’d have had the ASU/BYU up higher. Both teams looked great, and the contrast was fantastic.
Until ucla fixes the gold mask on the helmet they shouldn’t be number 1
link
I don’t have any affiliation to either LA school I just know that that ucla helmet looks atrocious with the all gold helmet and mask I prefer the gold hat grey mask look
Come on Jim, you can do better than this old take. And it really is a compliment.
Nah, this game should look much better than it did yesterday. Things that dragged it down:
UCLA ‘s too-small numbers, too-light script, wrong shade of blue, gold facemask, and all the tan yoga pants.
USC with a bunch of guys wearing big bird yoga pants, when yellow tights should not even be an option for them.
Be sure to remember your “you can never wear to many shades of gold pants” comment next weekend
UCLA should have worn blue socks. The “nude stocking” look was no bueno….
Wade again takes the Botté d’envoi and runs over Ligne des buts and wins the game! Thanks for the update.
My Mom is a huge Notre Dame fan and she could barely stomach watching that game. That should be “& 1” of the year, just for those clown costumes.
TJ is not only the sharpest dressed uniform watcher, he’s sharp, humorous, accurate in analysis. I crush TJ.
If LSU had gone with purple helmets and pants it would have been perfection.
I read “sick RenFair outfit” as “sick RicFlair outfit” for some reason, obviously I was confused for a second…
LSU yesterday was a downgrade. Not terrible, but I really would rather just see those beautiful purple jerseys with yellow helmets and pants instead of alternates.
There’s a pretty good argument to be made that Wisconsin – Nebraska should be mono red vs mono white.
Cal-Stanford should probably be color vs color.
GT-NCState and Notre Dame – Army were a solid tie for the & 1
ASU – BYU #1. Sun Devils should rock those unis week-in/week-out.
Satisfying symmetry in both teams’ uniforms. Only thing missing from both were contrasting socks.
Zero problem with the & 1 selection.
NCSU can do black well … the all-black is solid as is the the red/black/red/black. Some years ago, they even did black/red/black/not sure what the socks/leggings were. Worked well … and yes, better than what Michigan State just rolled out against Purdue. NCSU’s red jerseys have enough black trim and such to make the combination work better.
But that attempt at something different in Atlanta needs to be shelved. Worse, given the multiple helmet and pants options, why wear white when Georgia Tech comes out in all white unis? Makes no sense.
Don’t worry Jim, I’ll die right next to you on the legibility hill. Numbers should be legible from a distance, full stop.
After looking at the LSU photo, it made me realize how many players were doing the mock Zeke Elliot look without showing their midriff. It was really annoying. When is the NCAA going to mandate how to properly wear a uniform? Oh, they can’t now. These players are getting paid more $ than most of the NCAA higher ups. Guess we are just going to have to accept bicycle shorts/untucked undershirts/midriff jerseys.
Bama and OU were even harder to tell apart than Wisconsin and Nebraska. If ever there was a good game for an alternate jersey, that might have been it.
Funny thing with that — even though both teams wear crimson, Alabama’s helmets better matched OU’s jerseys than did OU’s helmets.
Red pants >mono purple…Bien joué, Laval!
And thank you Wade for covering these Canadian college programs and their uniforms!
Houston’s LYBFLYBS looked great – no argument there. Hope this was just a phase…or maybe they’ll be considered ‘bad luck blues’ given the final score.
Loved the LSU gold jerseys, but I think they would have really popped if they would have haad purple pants (which, to my knowledge, LSU has only ever worn once).