New Unis; New BS’er

Uncle Phil has given us all a gift – a new set of mix and match clothes for our action figures. On Thursday, Purdue unveiled a new set of football uniforms. The new costumes will feature the light weight material first debuted in 2009 under the ‘Pro Combat’ moniker  which was marketed as a ‘new technology that would allow for faster movement and enhanced cooling capabilities’ (Here’s to hoping that Pete gets the new uniform on fast because he honestly smells of death after a game). These types of uniforms have already seen B1G play at O$U against Michigan (in both 09 and 10) and align with the new ones that Sparty put out last year. The new uniforms will have our boys dressed from head to toe in fresh out the box items.  

The helmet is strikingly similar to the 2010 helmet. The noticeable change is that the stripe has been modified to be a single medium black stripe down the middle. We will not be fielding an alternate helmet this year; Purdue has worn a gold helmet since the Akers years ('90 was the last season). In '89 and '90 the colors on the helmet were roughly inverted and the team wore black helmets with gold stripes and logos. This streak will continue, but getting a new helmet next year wouldn't be possible, just maybe improbable -- unless Hope stays and keeps checking "All black everything" on the equipment sheet.

The shirts are your standard black and white. Each features minimalistic gold stitching around the neck with the Special logo on the collar. The numbers on the white will be a solid black and the black uniforms will feature solid gold. Each will be un-bordered, italic and big. The numbers appear to be extremely similar to the basketball jerseys – perhaps they wanted Bade to feel at home on the football field. The photos from Purdue Sports show that the material is definitely more breathable and will fit tighter to the skin – Kerrigan is presumed to silently hate everyone for having harder to illegally hold jerseys after he leaves.  The names will be on the back again this year.


Haters gonna hate.

The pants are where it gets interesting a bit. Our gold pants return to prominence with a thick black stripe up the side that goes from bottom of the pant leg to the hip. The space between the belt and the stripe will feature either the Train or the Nike logo. The Black pants will feature a thick gold stripe with the same design and logos. The interesting part comes from the addition of a pair – a pair of white knickers. Albert Evans showed off the White Pants and Jersey today and it looked surprisingly good – except there is just too little black and gold for it to sit well with a majority of the fan base.

Hope will have 6 different combinations to choose from. He already pulled out the White on Gold last year against MSU, which looked great against their Green on White, but there is no real discussion as to whether we will see the white pants at home or not at anytime this year. Even though they had 6 players showing off the uniforms – no one opted to go Black on White. You’ll have to use your imaginations on this one folks.

The uniforms overall are great, in my opinion – especially when you consider what they could have been. When you look at the Pro Combat uniforms have been in the past, we’re lucky there aren’t rivets on the shoulders or steam on the pant legs, but the purpose of the special ‘one and done’ uniforms, like the ones given to TCU and VaTech, weren’t designed to be full replacements like ours.



This isn't even gold -- problem?



After looking online and hearing all the belly aching, I feel that I have to address the issue of ‘gold.’ As you can see in the pictures here, this is not the official, dark Purdue Gold on these new uniforms. Nike has their own idea of what our gold should look like when made on high performance clothing – as I write this in the gold Nike Pro basketball shorts. Nike uses a color defined as Vegas Gold (Or Metallic Beige as BDowd calls it) – the same color as the glorious gold basketball kit. Nike isn’t the only one who has no idea what Old Gold is. Go to any spirit shop and you can find at least 4 different shades of gold throughout the clothing section. Even professional football teams can’t get away from the problem of correct coloring; It has been said that the uniform for the Drew Orleans Saints has four different shades of gold on it. The collar is different than the shades on the chest numbers for Pete’s sake.

The new pants are the exact same color as the ones we wore for the Throwback game in 2010. It’s also the same color as the numbers on our black basketball uniforms which everyone seems to love – the outlines were totally more intimidating though.

While the public can look at all the pictures on facebook, they will be first on display for fans on August 27^th from 11 am- 1pm during the ‘Meet the Boilers’ event on campus. The athletics department also seems to be constantly reminding folks that the youth versions of these uniforms will be available for purchase next week and the adult ones will come out around the end of the month. No mention on dog jerseys, which is extremely concerning because I know that the dog in your life will feel very ‘last season’ wearing their out dated jersey.

The hero West Lafayette deserves.

Alumni have been extremely vocal about their dislike for the uniforms online. This is par for the course with what has happened for the other schools when they get Nike-fied. Alabama had some tasteful pro combat uniforms that featured a small about of hound’s tooth to represent the legendary hat of Bear Bryant. Fans were furious that they were breaking tradition. Similar reactions were made by the ‘Nuts when OSU changed the uniforms for Michigan. It doesn’t matter what the boys wear on Saturday if they end up playing after Christmas/in January.  It definitely is a different look, but also a different material and style of uniform. Gone are the loose fit jerseys of yesteryear and in comes the form fitting, sleek, space age uniform. The appearance is consistent with the athletic branding change that happened with basketball –with less unnecessary piping – and is also consistent with the program’s desire to put the boys on the field as a solid mass of dark knights.

It all comes down to one thing: winning. Not the Charlie Sheen party kind of winning, but the kind of winning that puts people’s feet on the seats of Ross Ade again. The new recruits have been promised these new jerseys and it was part of the selling point for our program, which we cannot deny is in a bit of a slump. With the fashion show happening weekly up in Eugene, kids think alternate uniforms are the bee’s knees or something like that.

If white pants are what it takes, then white pants it is….just a pretty canvas for our boys to soak up the red paint in IU’s end zones come November.

This post was written by thuff - a new member of the BS team. A formal introduction and public flogging may or may not be performed in the next few days, but until then, he’s the one to complain to about this post.