With it being July and all, Baylor fans are chomping at the bit to see and discuss anything football related. With the Athletic Department debuting the new uniform combinations yesterday (Pics), a predictable eruption has come from message boarders.
The story on the Baylor Athletic site showcased five of the possible helmet/jersey/pant combinations. Among the more "radical" ideas was a white helmet and and all gold combination.
Before I give my thoughts on these, let me say this: I was a fan of the uniforms last year. They looked good. I liked the simple style and that we changed up the gold and white pants occasionally. That being said, generally speaking, I like what I see out of these new ones.
The only ones I'm not really a fan of is the all gold and the white jersey/gold pant combination. We had heard rumors about the all gold combo earlier and I was excited about it but the actual execution fell short. I think they should have either gone darker on the gold with lighter/brighter numbers and letters or outlined the numbers/letters with white instead of the solid forrest green with black outline. The white jersey/gold pant combo doesn't work for me because the gold is too light. Nothing pops. It would look better with last year's stripes.
I know the "purists" will hate the white helmets but I think they look awesome with the white jersey and pants. The all white look always looks good to me no matter what team is wearing them. I also like the white helmet with the green jersey/white pant combo. Again, it just pops.
There's been plenty of grumbling as I mentioned earlier and I'm seeing a ton of negative reaction to some of these with horrible facts/logic being used to support the reaction. Let's go over a few:
We're abandoning our "traditional" look.
We don't really have a traditional look. Check out this site. In the 80 years we've got documented photos of just our helmets, we've only had the interlocking BU for half of it. The helmet alone has been tweaked a dozen times. We've had numbers on the side of the helmet, nothing on the side of the helmet, three different colors of face masks, stripes/no stripes, outlined BU/non-outlined BU. The helmet that I have in my office has 6 "performance" stars on the front and 4 winged stickers on the back.
The jersey/pant combination is similar. True, we've had green and gold as part of our uniform forever and the tradition pretty much ends there. Wikipedia tells me that the color green has a wavelength of 520 to 570 nanometres. I don't even know what that means but I've bet we've used almost every shade of green in our jerseys since I started going to games in the 80's. We've also played with "Baylor" on the front/no "Baylor" on the front, bear paws on the shoulder, numbers on the sleeve, BU on the sleeve, fuzzy bear paw on the sleeve. Don't pretend that we've had a traditional look. It's always changed, and probably always will.
We are going the "Oregon" route.
Are you nuts? Unless you are defining "going Oregon" as having more than one home and away combination, you can't even come close to Oregon. They have 36 possible combinations. They have had diamond plating graphics in the past, they'll have wings on their shoulders this year. Please. The Oregon football department openly says that they tell recruits that they play with a different uniform combination every game. They will not wear the same combo twice in a season. Are we anywhere near that? Didn't think so.
Big time programs don't mess with their uniforms.
Really? Fist of all, we're not big time..yet. While there are programs like Texas, Alabama, Penn State, and Oklahoma that don't change at all, a little research shows that there are plenty of big time programs that tweak, change, and overhaul their look.
Is Joe Montana playing for Notre Dame or Green Bay?
The Wolverines appear to be updating their uniforms.
Even 5 time Champ and winners of 800 games Ohio State is not immune. From the late 1960's.
Is this what Spurrier wore when he played? Is Emmitt's look "traditional" or not?
As you can see, we're not alone in doing this. When it comes to uniforms, all that matters is that it looks good. If you're whining about this, you probably haven't experienced enough in your life to realize what is important and what's not. Just my $0.02 people.
I'll try to start posting again now that the season is creeping up on us. Until practice starts, I'll put together some good off season topics.
Later Kids,
Murph
No comments:
Post a Comment