Dump the Maize-Out

Yes, now that the athletic department has spent six years aggressively hawking maize season shirts, we should tell everyone to switch back to blue.

Yeah, I like the maize too.  Blue shirts look good, but it really doesn't stand out at all.  When people are wearing maize, you can certainly tell.  And as jeremy put it, the "season shirts" have been maize for a while now, and those are what a lot of people wear to the game anyway.

I think the maize student section with the rest being blue could work.  Maize shirts are just not that common, but I feel like just about everyone owns some shade of dark blue.

Several years ago, in the first year that the Athletic Department actually got involved in promoting Maize-outs, they also promoted a blue-out.  Although participation in that particular blue-out was actually higher than it had been in maize-outs prior, the visual effect was far less impressive.  Maize stands out and catches the eye.  A sea of navy t-shirts or hoods fades easily into the background, and actually has the effect of highlighting those NOT wearing blue.  Now, if 99% of the crowd were wearing blue, then making that 1% stand out might be a great way to enforce compliance.  But if "only" 75% of the crowd is wearing blue, then you can't even tell there's supposed to be a blue-out going on.  By contrast, when 75% of the crowd is wearing yellow, at least you can tell.  Bottom line: if everyone participates, than any color will work (and blue might be awesome). But because not everyone participates, maize is the better choice.

 And believe itor not, things have gotten much better. Look at aerial shots of the stadium from, say, 10 years ago: you can't even tell where the student section is, and half the crowd is wearing white.

Now if only we could get the bookstores to stop selling red shirts that say "Michigan" in white letters. I mean, seriously.

That OSU game clip was in November, aka cold. When it's cold out, the Maize Out is usually scrapped anyway because it's hard to find maize cold gear. When it's hot out, most would rather wear maize than dark blue. Nobody's forcing anyone to wear anything anyway, people just do it b/c of the suggestion and it looks cool. It's not like you're not allowed unless you're wearing a maize tshirt. Tshirt colors are supposed to be intimidating? What the heck is intimidating about a blue shirt? Loudness is intimidating, tshirts are just supposed to look nice. Blue is gentle on the eyes anyway, maize is bright and obnoxious...if any tshirt color is intimidating or distracting to our opponents, it's maize.

Why does everything need to have a gimmick?