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Wearing the wrong colors.
Why is it that teams think wearing colors that aren't the school colors gives them an edge? Okay, when Dan Devine sent Notre Dame onto the field against USC in green jerseys in 1977 it was pretty cool. Especially from such a straight laced guy. (Ara Parseghian did put a green shamrock on the ND helmet for a few years.) But then why did Notre Dame keep gold and blue as its colors all the years leading up to that and since? Change colors to match the team nickname? That would never happen, right? Well in 1890 the faculty at Missouri picked the school colors Crimson and Gold (yeah, the university president had gone to Harvard!). But the next year the students picked the name Tigers for the new football team. Shockingly the faculty decided that old gold and black made more sense for the kids to play in as 'Tigers' and those have been the colors ever since.
I read somewhere that in the early days pink was a popular color for football jerseys. but you don't see that anymore. In college I thought the combination black and blue would be both an attractive and fun combination for a football uniform. Who could resist the cheer "Beat 'em, Black and Blue!" I think at that time only Johns Hopkins had those colors. Since then there have been a couple of new pro teams with some combination including black and blue, and it does look good. If your school is like Maryland and has multiple school colors it's not too hard to be varied.
Some of the schools who wear or have worn the 'wrong' colors at least occasionally -
Stanford only has the color red, so we might allow them a little leeway as in black trim, but they have worn a green pine tree on their helmets.
It's only paste ons, but scarlet and gray Ohio State wears green Buckeye leaves on their helmets. The 'gray' varies from silver to black on the uniform.
UCLA's colors are navy blue and gold. But they've worn light blue jerseys instead for ages.
Colorado's colors are silver and gold. It's understandable that they might choose a darker color for their jerseys. It's usually black. But for several years they wore light blue!
The Old Gold and White of Georgia Tech have occasionally worn gold jersey's but more often black. Recently the extra color has been navy blue instead of black. I think navy is currently 'official' but that may last as long as the current head coach.
Florida State's garnet and gold, have worn black over black against Boston College this past week and in 2006. The huge morale boost resulted in two losses for FSU.
Since Cal is wearing its most ugly combinations less, green and yellow Oregon wins the hideous uniform contest this year, hands down. Actually their road unis are fine. The home suits are a nightmare especially the yellow jersey and the black jersey with the gray 'step here' tread pattern on the shoulders. ETA- I see that the current Oregon green jersey has silver (duck?) wings on the shoulder. Not hideous but definitely funny.
Both Kansas (red and blue) and Kansas State (purple and white) wear silver pants more often than Colorado which has silver as a team color. After many seasons of changing year-by-year, K State's helmet has become a standard silver. Ku's mascot Jayhawk is drawn with a yellow bill and yellow shoes(!!), so yellow appeared on the KU helmet for the few years the mascot did.
TCU (purple and white) old-timer fans gripe that the horned Frogs have never been the same since they stopped wearing khaki pants. As with Kansas State, silver has become a prominent but strictly unofficial color on TCU team uniforms.
Why is it that teams think wearing colors that aren't the school colors gives them an edge? Okay, when Dan Devine sent Notre Dame onto the field against USC in green jerseys in 1977 it was pretty cool. Especially from such a straight laced guy. (Ara Parseghian did put a green shamrock on the ND helmet for a few years.) But then why did Notre Dame keep gold and blue as its colors all the years leading up to that and since? Change colors to match the team nickname? That would never happen, right? Well in 1890 the faculty at Missouri picked the school colors Crimson and Gold (yeah, the university president had gone to Harvard!). But the next year the students picked the name Tigers for the new football team. Shockingly the faculty decided that old gold and black made more sense for the kids to play in as 'Tigers' and those have been the colors ever since.
I read somewhere that in the early days pink was a popular color for football jerseys. but you don't see that anymore. In college I thought the combination black and blue would be both an attractive and fun combination for a football uniform. Who could resist the cheer "Beat 'em, Black and Blue!" I think at that time only Johns Hopkins had those colors. Since then there have been a couple of new pro teams with some combination including black and blue, and it does look good. If your school is like Maryland and has multiple school colors it's not too hard to be varied.
Some of the schools who wear or have worn the 'wrong' colors at least occasionally -
Stanford only has the color red, so we might allow them a little leeway as in black trim, but they have worn a green pine tree on their helmets.
It's only paste ons, but scarlet and gray Ohio State wears green Buckeye leaves on their helmets. The 'gray' varies from silver to black on the uniform.
UCLA's colors are navy blue and gold. But they've worn light blue jerseys instead for ages.
Colorado's colors are silver and gold. It's understandable that they might choose a darker color for their jerseys. It's usually black. But for several years they wore light blue!
The Old Gold and White of Georgia Tech have occasionally worn gold jersey's but more often black. Recently the extra color has been navy blue instead of black. I think navy is currently 'official' but that may last as long as the current head coach.
Florida State's garnet and gold, have worn black over black against Boston College this past week and in 2006. The huge morale boost resulted in two losses for FSU.
Since Cal is wearing its most ugly combinations less, green and yellow Oregon wins the hideous uniform contest this year, hands down. Actually their road unis are fine. The home suits are a nightmare especially the yellow jersey and the black jersey with the gray 'step here' tread pattern on the shoulders. ETA- I see that the current Oregon green jersey has silver (duck?) wings on the shoulder. Not hideous but definitely funny.
Both Kansas (red and blue) and Kansas State (purple and white) wear silver pants more often than Colorado which has silver as a team color. After many seasons of changing year-by-year, K State's helmet has become a standard silver. Ku's mascot Jayhawk is drawn with a yellow bill and yellow shoes(!!), so yellow appeared on the KU helmet for the few years the mascot did.
TCU (purple and white) old-timer fans gripe that the horned Frogs have never been the same since they stopped wearing khaki pants. As with Kansas State, silver has become a prominent but strictly unofficial color on TCU team uniforms.
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