The Uniforms
What's the general feeling about the uniforms we wore on Saturday? I personally favor the traditional Michigan unis with an occasional subtle style upgrade, but if you want to go all WVU/Oregon (to please Adidas?) then stick with simple stuff like the normal road jersey with dark blue pants.
MSU's Nike combat thing was a bit much but at least they looked formidable. We, on the other hand, looked like we were dressed to be the clowns at a girls' sleepover party... weak, weak weak!
When making our sartorial choices we should remember that:
"We Are Michigan"
October 17th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
I didn't mind the white pants, maybe drop the striped shoulders for an all-blue shoulder with maize piping or a block M? That might look pretty sweet.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:22 AM ^
I didn't like them. I'm not an old man (at least I don't think 37 is old) but I am a fan of keeping it simple. Keep the uniforms the same year in and year out, like Penn St and Alabama.
I want the young men playing the game to concentrate on blocking, tackling, and running the football not looking in the mirror admiring what their throwbacks look like. I used to work in college athletics and I remember a game were the guys were arguing about high socks vs short socks before a game we should have won by a mile. Instead we lost 9-7. I can still hear coach yelling "Socks! Gosh darned socks!".
October 17th, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^
This is a bold post.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^
uniformz.
would have been more apt. also, my $.02, we looked ridiculous.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:47 AM ^
Like the all whites. Hate the stripes in them though.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:54 AM ^
October 17th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
We looked like Ronald McDonald out there. I hated the unis and as far as I'm concerned I never want to see them again.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:00 AM ^
They can burn those uniforms with the ships. Terrible.
As for MSU's ensemble...it sucked to lose to Wayne State. They also might want to remind their coach that when he gets drunk and passes out at his sister's house, he shouldn't steal her 12-year old son's goodwill sweatshirt.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
That game did not look like Michigan vs. Michigan State. At all. Is it too much to ask for Michigan to look like Michigan?
October 17th, 2011 at 10:16 AM ^
I liked the uniforms. I think they capture our history. For those unaware of our uniforms through history, this article does a good job of documenting them -
http://blog.heritagesportsart.com/2010/08/university-of-michigan-football-uniform.html
The stripes were a part of the 1891 uniforms. Sure they look like Adidas marketing, but they actually do have some connection to our history.
Also, Alabama was mentioned as being "the same." Although they don't have stripes on any throwbacks yet, I wouldn't rule it out. It appears that they had stripes quite a few times in their history as well. We'll see :)
http://blog.heritagesportsart.com/search/label/University%20of%20Alabama
As long as U-M is some combination of maize/blue/white - I'm fine with it.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^
Liked them, then kewl.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:40 AM ^
cool. A bit of one-off experimenting in rival games is fine with me, especially for road uniforms.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^
Rap music
October 17th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^
My students in Louisiana, other than ribbing me for Michigan's loss on my birthday, also loved the uniforms... on both sides.
That kind of non-fanbase love (although my students will never be in the market for a M uniform) will probably keep this idea alive.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:14 AM ^
October 17th, 2011 at 11:14 AM ^
Were smooth.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:19 AM ^
I liked that they released them at game time so people didn't have time to complain about them during the weeks leading up to the game.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:24 AM ^
I liked the white pants. I wish they would have paired it with the regular road jersey. I also liked the yellow under shirts with victors valiant on the indiae arm.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:45 AM ^
Part that annoyed me the most about the Uniforms was the zoomed out view. on a 60" TV I was unable to clearly make out the Michigan Helmet. The stripes were taking attention away from the best part of the whole uniform, the helmet.
Everyone is resistant to change in some way, change to some people will always be bad, they just dont like it. I personnaly don't care what they wear, Alumni sometimes feel that the team is supposed to just follow tradition instead of making thier own. At some point a Michigan player first wore a winged helmet. At some point a Michigan player first wore Maize pants. In 2011 a Michigan player first wore those jerseys. 40 years from now some kid will wear those same jerseys in a throw back game and fans will embrace those same jerseys as part of the great tradition at Michigan.
It's wasn't the jerseys that struck fear in the hearts of the opponent, it was the 6' 6" 280 pound DE with 4.4 speed that can bench press a house, walking on the field in that jersey. That's what used to scare the shit out of opponents.
http://www.uni-watch.com/2011/10/16/hail-to-the-conquring-spartans/
October 17th, 2011 at 11:30 AM ^
...is the undershirt with the "Victors Valiant" on the sleeves.
That I thought was awesome and I think would work with any standard uni. As for the rest of the uniform, with the loss, it goes the way of the Dodo. Don't fall into the same trap as ND and the green uni's. They're bad luck, end of story.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:31 AM ^
Not a huge fan of the jerseys. All white without the stripes woulda been ok. I thought the undershirts were pretty sweet.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:40 AM ^
slippery slope thing the "get off my lawn" crowd was going on and on about WRT to the UTL uniforms? Yeah, we were right.
All we heard was how it was a one-time thing to honor the first night game, etc. People that understand the nightmare that is Dave Brandon understood that it was a trial for future terrible marketing ideas, like these away JERZEES. Much like the piped-in music was the precursor for Pop Evil. And now Pop Evil wants to play live during a game. Disgusting. Even I didn't think it would come this soon, though. It's clear that DB enjoyed selling all those alternate uniforms to the masses and will now roll out new/modified uniforms on a regular basis for special games and rivalry games. Our brand is getting diluted right before our very eyes. DB will push everything to the absolute limit to the extent we do not freak out on him (see OSU game to midyear, mascots).
I can only imagine what he has in store for Bama next year. /shudder
October 17th, 2011 at 11:42 AM ^
October 17th, 2011 at 11:49 AM ^
Way to say that a completely cosmetic change for no other reason than to sell jerzeyzz is the same thing as safety advances.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:48 AM ^
The home version was okay, but I didn't like the road version with the small M.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:50 AM ^
Post is mislabeled. Should say "uniformz." Kuz theez are wikked, dogg.
October 17th, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^
The white pants were like, okay, fine. The away version of the UTL Legacy jersey was terrible. They looked bad and played badly. I wonder if the latter is because of the former . . .
October 17th, 2011 at 6:03 PM ^
An interesting thought. What better way to get the guys focused on the game than to get their attentions on something that shouldn't have any effect on how they play.