AUD & UW 2024 College Football Uniform Preview
Good morning, Uni Watchers. It’s Friday. We made it!
With the NCAA Football Season kicking off early tomorrow (with Florida State and Georgia Tech playing in Dublin, Ireland) and another half dozen or so games taking place throughout the day and evening, I had hoped to bring you an NCAAFB preview along the lines of what Paul used to do back in his ESPN/SI/Inside Hook days. You’ll also recall that for the past decade-plus, Paul took “vacation” from Uni Watch — with me handling the weekdays — but his vacation was spent mostly compiling his epic NCAA and NFL uni previews. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do a college uni preview, but I will be doing an NFL one, even if it’s not quite on the grand scale that Paul used to do.
As fate would have it, old pal Clint Richardson, who is still a daily UW reader, and who runs the absolutely AWESOME Auburn Uniform Database, has done an equally epic NCAAFB uni preview, and today he’s going to share some of it with us — and I urge each and every one of you to head over to his site to check out the full preview (links are below).
Clint published his preview on August 19th, and of course, there have been a few more unveilings since then (I’ve covered a few here on UW), so the preview is complete through the date of publication.
Clint and I collaborated on a few Auburn-related articles in the early days of Uni Watch, and I was always impressed with his professionalism and courtesy (even when his Cam Newton-led Tigers took “my” Oregon Ducks behind the woodshed to win the Natty in January of 2011). I’m pretty sure Clint did the uni-preview for Auburn on Uni Watch back then. He’s back now to work with Uni Watch once again.
Anyway, those of you who know (or remember) Clint are no doubt familiar with his efforts in creating the Auburn Uniform Database. If you’re not familiar with Clint or the AUD, I urge you to check that out!
Let me turn it over to Clint now, and when you’re through with his UW teaser/preview, head on over to the AUD and check out the full (and I mean CHOCK FULL) 2024 NCAAFB uni preview.
Here’s Clint:
2024 College Football Uniform Preview
by Clint Richardson
With the football season just around the corner, that means a new crop of uniforms that are set to hit the gridiron.
For over the last decade, I’ve compiled a list of all the uniforms, patches, logos, and field designs that I’ve been able to find into a comprehensive guide to get you and other uniform-fanatics prepared for the season. Rather than reprinting all 130+ schools here, I figured we’d hit some of the highlights with a few of my favorite items from the full list.
The Golden Bears move to the ACC (what?) this season, with the team’s jerseys and turf field reflecting the change. Cal will also be sporting new uniforms in their inaugural ACC season, mothballing the Sather Stripe design produced by Nike last year and Under Armour previously. The new uniforms evoke a throwback design, harkening to the 1970s and Joe Roth throwbacks worn for years now.
The new design features triple stripes on the jersey shoulders and pants legs. The jerseys come in white and navy (for now) while the pants are available in white, navy, and yellow options. There is also a yellow helmet to be worn as a Roth throwback, complete with stripes and the block C logo.
Oregon joins the Big 10 this season. The 30th anniversary of Oregon’s O logo coincides with a “Generation O” uniform set. Oregon released a new uniform every few weeks during the summer, beginning with a new black uniform. These combine a few eras of Ducks uniforms, including the original diamond-plate design.
The second uniform may be my favorite OU uniform, including an apple green base, yellow O helmet decals and trim across the jersey, and Puddles (!) returning to the shoulders. Next was a white colorway of the Puddles uniform, which also look incredible.
A white colorway of the black diamond-plate and wing design was leaked but has not been officially announced yet.
Purdue has officially retired Nike’s Mach Speed template, being the last of the Power 5 holdouts. The new FUSE designs feature a beautiful set of stripes on the shoulders and pants with a matching decal on the helmets. It’s a new striping pattern for the Boilermakers and it works really well. The team showed off black and white jerseys, black and gold helmets, and black, gold, and white pants.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk has never been more true than with these new red uniforms for Kansas. Red isn’t anything new for KU, but the interesting details here come on the shoulders. The pair of blue/white/blue stripes is interrupted by the school’s battle cry.
I think it’s easy to dismiss these as another weird uniform, but the shoulder text reminds me of the old-school rivalry uniforms like Iowa State and other teams wore once upon a time. I also think they could have done something unique with the pants to match the jerseys.
The Beavers have updated their uniforms for 2024, sticking with the shoulder yoke stripe motif. The new set features a “master stripe” so that the colorway is consistent across each jersey. The pants carry a matching stripe design.
This uniform comes in orange, white, black, and a dark grey “anthracite” version. The anthracite set is close to the black design but features a black outline on the numbers rather than orange.
The best news of all from Knoxville is that Tennessee has FINALLY fixed the SEC patch placement after years of an embarrassing layout.
The Volunteers have also revealed the latest edition of their Smokey Grey uniform series, and it’s a genuine banger. The entire design is based on the Tennessee state flag, with the tri-star logo on the shoulders and a thick orange, thin white stripe placed on the helmet and pants. “Tennessee” is placed on the chest, which makes this the first home uniform to wear the team name in this placement.
New black helmets this season for the Lions. The center stripe is a gold Titans-like double stripe and the sides feature the primary lion head logo. Additionally, a beautiful white helmet with black and gold script Lions is set to debut this year.
After spending thirty years playing at the Division II level, the Mercyhurst Lakers have jumped up to FCS and are joining the Northeast Conference. The team will also sport a new grey set of uniforms this year, complete with a clover on the shoulder stripes.
The best turf field award hands-down goes to the Edinboro Fighting Scots who have added a tartan pattern to the endzones. It goes perfectly well with their beautiful tartan helmets too!
(I love putting together this piece each year to discover schools I’ve never heard of like Edinboro and falling in love with their aesthetic.)
The Gorillas (yes, really) have revealed their new look for the season opener against Ferris State. Black jerseys feature crimson numbers with gold outlines and triple stripes on the shoulders. They are paired with white helmets and pants. The helmets feature a full-body gorilla silhouette.
Harambe would be proud.
(Note: the AUD article does not include any uniforms released after originally being published on August 19th.)
Thanks, Clint! Nice preview — and I can almost guarantee that not only did most of our readers (myself included) not know some of those schools have new uniforms, I’d bet some of us never even heard of some of those teams! Great job with this — now everyone, go check out the rest of the 130+ schools whose unis for 2024 Clint has previewed!
Guess the Game from the Scoreboard
Guess The Game…
…From The Scoreboard
Today’s scoreboard comes from Ruben Panetta.
The premise of the game (GTGFTS) is simple: I’ll post a scoreboard and you guys simply identify the game depicted. In the past, I don’t know if I’ve ever completely stumped you (some are easier than others).
Here’s the Scoreboard. In the comments below, try to identify the game (date and location, as well as final score). If anything noteworthy occurred during the game, please add that in (and if you were AT the game, well bonus points for you!):
Please continue sending these in! You’re welcome to send me any scoreboard photos (with answers please), and I’ll keep running them.
Guess the Game from the Uniform
Based on the suggestion of long-time reader/contributor Jimmy Corcoran, we’ve introduced a new “game” on Uni Watch, which is similar to the popular “Guess the Game from the Scoreboard” (GTGFTS), only this one asked readers to identify the game based on the uniforms worn by teams.
Like GTGFTS, readers will be asked to guess the date, location and final score of the game from the clues provided in the photo. Sometimes the game should be somewhat easy to ascertain, while in other instances, it might be quite difficult. There will usually be a visual clue (something odd or unique to one or both of the uniforms) that will make a positive identification of one and only one game possible. Other times, there may be something significant about the game in question, like the last time a particular uniform was ever worn (one of Jimmy’s original suggestions). It’s up to YOU to figure out the game and date.
Today’s GTGFTU comes from Leon Widmer.
Good luck and please post your guess/answer in the comments below.
And finally…
…that’s going to do it for the early post. Big triple-plus THANKS to Clint for sharing his incredible efforts with us! Are you ready for some football???????
I should have a couple more articles for you today, and in a bit, we’ll have Anthony’s Ticker, so do be sure to keep checking in!
Everyone have a wonderful Friday. Jimmer Vilk will take you through the weekend (and I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a “mini SMUW” for the NCAA games taking place tomorrow!). See you guys right back here on Monday.
Peace,
PH
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