K-Uniform Review: Texas

Here’s exactly what I wrote in the 2014 uniform preview column:

"Somehow, the prospect of being the exact opposite of UT from a uniform perspective is exactly what the marketing guys are looking for. Could be a good debut for the crimson chrome uniforms. Prepare to want to tear out your retinas when this game rolls around."

And this:

Prediction: Crimson Chrome or some other ridiculous option like Blue/Dark Grey/Red

Preference: Blue/Blue/Blue

But, I had to make a decision in last week’s column and I threw all my eggs into a bizarro world combo as seen here from last week:

Opponent	Prediction	Preference	Points (Total)
Texas	Blue/Dark Grey/Red	Blue/Blue/Blue	???????

For those of you who care about stuff like this (a small minority I’m sure), should I give myself credit for predicting Crimson Chrome or be the stand up guy and take the goose egg? I’m sure no one cares about my personal record of predicting the uniforms for this team, but your comments are always welcome. Now, on to the actual analysis of these clown costumes.

The Best Feature

It’s gotta be the huge Jayhawk head on the shiny chrome helmet, right? It’s definitely the best part of this gimmicky set. KU has done everything right in the helmet department over the last few years.

The Underappreciated Aspects

Blue sleeves. The players that wore the blue sleeves under the red jerseys provided some contrast to the proceedings. When I initially saw the uniforms today, this was the one thing that stuck out to me.

Another small detail that I thought was nice was the player number on the right side of the helmet. I usually like it when the two sides of the helmet feature something different, but this time I like it for the color. The blue chrome of the number looked good and made me ask why Adidas decided to make these uniforms red when blue is the real school color and would’ve looked better anyway. At least we’ve worn an all-blue set in the past.

The Worst Feature

Red. Sorry, Crimson Chrome fans, but KU’s primary school color is blue. This much red is not KU to me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep harping on it until they decide to cut out the excessive use of red. Adidas: You stopped making red alternates for the hoops program because Bill Self didn’t like them, can someone with some clout reject these too?

The other worst aspects of this uniform set are the "chrome" outlined numbers. A friend of mine who broadcasts high school football from media booths far closer to the field than the one at KU said that the chrome outlined blue numbers on the red jersey would be extremely hard to read, especially in weird light or at weird angles. Sounds about right. Can anyone that sat high in the stands at Memorial Stadium on Saturday confirm this?

Also, I thought that the "chrome" Jayhawks on the shoulders and pants looked bad. On TV, they looked like shiny blobsat time and in my opinion, would probably look better outlined.

Overall Grade: D-

How’d the Teams Look Together?

Texas has one of the most traditional looks in all of college football, so it was quite the contrast. Texas looked classy and KU's uniform would look far better on a red lego spaceman. Let’s hope that these are not the future of KU football.

Next week, Kansas travels to West Virginia and the road look for KU has been much more pleasing on the eye (the Duke game is the exception), so let’s hope they do something sensible. If you’re not going to play good football, at least look respectable.