College football has finally come back to America. Throughout all 120+ teams there are new players, new coaches, and new schemes. For some teams the personnel changes are enough, for other teams more change is desired. UK was one of the first teams this year to brag about its new football uniform. NOB went to the unveiling and were supremely underwhelmed. We spoke at the time that UK needed to do something crazy and outside the box, they did neither. After week 1, where do they stack up?
Twitter has changed the face of gauging public opinion. Forget secret polls and guessing what everyone is thinking. That is so 1996. Nowadays, people see, form an opinion and tweet. This is the world we live in. So when college football (2[SUP]nd[/SUP] largest sport in America) starts up and teams display their new uniforms, it becomes a big deal nationally. These newly designed jerseys generate only 2 opinions: Love or Hate. There is no in between. So who were the winners and losers of Week 1 college football fashion?
Georgia sadly is a loser with the football uniform but is a winner in a power ranger look-a-like contest. Let’s not get trapped in the whole “You just don’t like it cause its different” attitude. I love change and style (see pictures from my college year). But Georgia will be judged differently more than any other school trying to do something different, because they are a real football school. They have had players like Herschel Walker, Champ Bailey, Terrell Davis and Heinz Ward. This school has too much history doing something this “out of the box”. What’s next? LSU going all purple with gold thunderbolts on the butt?
Maryland Terrapins are winners this week, mostly because Lebron James said he doesn’t like them. When a full grown man wears a headband to cover his hairline I tend to think he doesn’t know anything about looking good. Maryland doesn’t have quite the history of having such a great football team, so I say yay to the Terps for taking this risk, it really paid off. People are talking about Maryland Football for the first time ever. They did what they had to do.
Boise State is another school who took a risk and ended up winning. I like the helmet, although I thought by now we would have a horse mane going down the middle and a team like the Broncos would try that by now, wishful thinking I guess. Boise’s team colors are white, blue, and orange and any team that has those colors usually look terrible (Right, Florida?). But Boise did it right by focusing on the white color and accenting with the others. The Broncos perhaps couldn’t have gambled too much, you know since they play on a blue field. We don’t want to blind the people of Idaho now do we?
The biggest winner of the week was Oregon. They did everything right. Is this team not historically known for its football? Check. Do they have vibrant team colors? Check. Oregon is the perfect school for crazy uniforms. Neon green, black and white are totally bad ass colors when used properly (prom, wedding, prison, etc). My favorite piece of the outfit is the helmet, because its black with a dull finish, not shiny like you would expect. It looks like a spray painted car, but cooler (if that’s possible). I love the bright green contrasting with the dark black very nicely (excuse me while I change my tampon).
After seeing all the other designs of the uniforms, UK were losers with their new uniforms. UK and WKU were the only football game being played in the world and no one on twitter even mentioned the new jerseys. It grabbed no one’s attention because they don’t look any more different than any other team. I hope the next time UK changes their outfits they go wild with it. UK can afford to take the risk and they have great colors to work with. Until then, let’s just get some W’s, because looking good can only get you so much…or can it?
