Columbia Lions (2013, 1970)

What is there to say about a team so bad, the players used to enter the field while the band played the “Mickey Mouse Club” theme? Among the litany of infamy: No winning record since 1996, one Ivy League title (1961, and it was a shared title to boot), an infamous 44-game losing streak in the 1980s and an 0-10 season in 2013 in which the Lions mustered 7.3 points per game. In 2013! When football scores resemble basketball scores! Seven-point-three points!

Well, they’ll always have that 1934 Rose Bowl win over Stanford (yes, it actually happened): 

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Rules of thumb and notes regarding Columbia’s unis:

• This is another team that couldn’t hold onto one style for the life of it. Midseason changes were not uncommon in the 1970s. The light blue jersey has been a constant for decades, however.
• Light blue pants were introduced in the mid-80s, and have been used on and off since.
• This is the only FCS team in this project, to my knowledge, to wear a throwback uniform (the 2003 team wore throwback jerseys to honor the aforementioned Rose Bowl team, and throwback helmets to honor the ’61 bunch).
• You’ll notice that teams with losing traditions (Columbia, Rhody, Brown until the last decade) tend to make the most overhauls. A new coach comes in, introduces a new look, coach quits/gets fired, new coach comes in, introduces a new look … the cycle repeats itself.
• In the 1960s and ’70s, Columbia often wore light blue jerseys, even when the other team wore a “dark” jersey. Foes often wore dark shirts at Columbia. Perhaps the teams thought the jerseys contrasted better than if they wore white shirts. In the early-mid-60s, Columbia wore only light blue jerseys, home and road.

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I am indebted to the Columbia Spectator for its comprehensive game coverage in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, without which I'd still be lost in the wilderness trying to figure out all the uniform variations. I'm truly impressed these Ivy League papers sent writers and photographers on the road. When I was in college, that was a luxury.

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Say this about Columbia: The team stunk, but it dressed well while averaging one touchdown per game. This was a new design for 2013. One quirk: Check out the two road uniforms. The all-white version has a light blue stripe down the middle of the helmet, while the blue-pants version omits the helmet stripe. Did some equipment manager go through the trouble of removing the stripe every time the Lions hit the road?

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Our “classic” uniform goes back to 1970: SIX variations in nine games, mostly involving the helmets. The road style on the left is what the Lions wore when they were humiliated 55-0 by Dartmouth, which rubbed it in with an end-around play for a TD with the score already 41-0. (Dartmouth then had the gall to put a diagram of the play on a poster commemorating its undefeated season - see below). Columbia got its revenge the next year with a 31-29 win on a last-minute field goal. 

Pardon the lousy picture quality. ... I really need a scanner.

(Much of this info was taken from “Dartmouth College Football: Green Fields of Autumn,” By Jack DeGange and David Shribman, an awesome, awesome book. The poster was taken from Shribman’s “One Hundred Years of Dartmouth Football,” published in 1980, also awesome.)

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Next week: We travel upstate and check out the Cornell Big Red. Hey, it's opening weekend ... enjoy the games!

Brown Bears (2012-13, 1984-89)

Welcome to the Ivy League, the land of 10-game schedules and perpetual self-imposed postseason bans. Someday, that'll change. Maybe.

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When I think of Brown, three alumni come to mind: 

1. Fritz Pollard, one of football first African-American stars and the NFL’s first black coach;
2. Joe Paterno, member of Brown’s Class of 1950 before embarking on his long coaching career at Penn State;
3. Steve Jordan, former Minnesota Vikings All-Pro tight end and co-star of this bit of awesomeness:

But there’s far more to Brown than that, especially after Phil Estes became coach in 1998. Under Estes, the Bears have won or shared three Ivy League titles, raising their total of Ancient Eight crowns to … four. Brown has also dominated in-state rival Rhode Island in the annual Governor’s Cup game, winning four of the last five showdowns. (The fact an Ivy team dominates a CAA team in an annual rivalry boggles my mind. Penn, a damn good Ivy team, has lost to the CAA’s Villanova Wildcats the last nine seasons). 

Sean Morey, Stephen Campbell, Zak DeOssie … These are names worthy of addition to the list of prominent Brown alumni.

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Notes ’n stuff on Brown’s uniforms:

• This is a tough team to research. The Bears could never seem to find a uniform they liked until the last decade or so.
• Brown has worn tan, silver, gold, white and, yes, brown helmets. Helmet logos have changed frequently: Numbers, bear images, the Brown logo, a script “Bruins” (an alternate nickname, a la “Elis” for Yale), the school seal, a bear paw, blank helmets … The current one, a sprig of ivy weaved through the letter “B,” is pretty classy.
• In 2001, Brown ditched its silver-brown-and-red combo for a more basic look: plain white helmets with a paw on the side and a simple brown jersey with brown or white pants. But three years later, the Bears returned the virtually the exact same uniform it had from 1997-2000! I can’t think of another team in this project dumping a style only to re-embrace it later in toto. OK, maybe Delaware in 2007, but that was for only a year. 
• No manufacturer’s logo has EVER been displayed. I have no idea why, but I’m not complaining. But who does make Brown's unis? Every other Ivy team is outfitted by Nike. …

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The archives are far from incomplete, and the menus are far from user-friendly, but the Brown Daily Herald has some decent stuff

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The 2013 uniform (above) has its roots in the 1990s. (Note the double outline of the numbers. How dated can you get?) The funky red pant stripes were added in 2012 and are similar to Yale’s and other Nike teams (Hmmmm … I think I just answered my question).

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The “classic” look takes us to the mid-80s, which was a time of mediocrity (four straight seasons of 5-4 or 4-5) before an 0-9-1 disaster in 1988. But I like this uniform, if only for the school seal on the helmets. Columbia did this for a year in the ’80s, and Harvard has made the school seal a jersey staple since 1980.

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Up next: Those lovable losers, the Columbia Lions!

UMass Minutemen (2013, 1974)

Once upon a long ago, the old Yankee Conference was UMass and the five dwarfs; the Redmen/Minutemen won or shared 13 YC titles from 1963-82. UMass won the I-AA (now FCS) national title in 1998 and reached the title game in 2006. A move to the FBS and the Mid-American Conference in 2012 (’cause when when you think of "Mid-America," the Bay State naturally comes to mind) has been … well … a 2-22 mark says it all. But with the return of Mark Whipple, who coached UMass to its finest hour in ’98, a spirit of optimism has returned to Amherst. (And the Minutemen will actually be playing in Amherst this year after spending two years at Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium while their home field underwent renovations.)

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Notes/rules of thumb for UMass:

* For a team with a great football tradition, the Minutemen have burned through quite a few helmet designs (many combinations of “UM” and, later, “UMass”). Black helmets and uniforms were introduced in 2012 (the year they joined the MAC), and maroon helmets were added to the mix last year. Judging from preseason pictures, it looks like white helmets, used from 1969-2011, will return this year.

* Gold trim was used off and on from the 1940s until the mid-80s, which give some of the jerseys (in my opinion) kind of a BC look.

* Team has had FOUR nicknames over the last century: Aggies, Statesmen, Redmen (1946-72) and Minutemen (since 1973).

* From poring through the UMass yearbooks (see below), it appears the jerseys have turned slightly darker over the years.

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The UMass yearbook is the Index, and many of the 1960s-70s yearbooks have plenty of color pictures. The UMass-UConn yearbooks are noticeably more comprehensive than their Yankee Conference brethren.

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The 2013 look (see above): ELEVEN designs in 12 games, including special helmets for breast cancer awareness and Veteran’s Day. Actually, it’s 12 designs, if you count the Maine game, in which the UMass players came out for warmups in black helmets, black shirts and red pants, then played the game in all-red.  The combo was used in game later that season, but with the star-spangled Veteran’s Day logo on the helmets in lieu of the “regular” logo.

In case you’re wondering, black helmet/white shirt/black pants was the one combo used twice. Use this info only for good and not evil.

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For the “throwback” uniform, we’ll go to 1974, when UMass introduced one of my favorite logos in any sport, ever: The proud minuteman perched between the “U” and “M.” The helmet was used through 1984. The ’74 Minutemen tied for the Yankee Conference title (with Maine - ha!). Names were added to the jerseys a year later.

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Up next: We turn to the Ivy League, starting with the Brown Bears.

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One last note: I'm going to try to update the blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with occasional "bonus" posts on other days. 

UConn Huskies (2013, 1970)

Long known for its basketball prowess, The University of Connecticut’s football team had a pretty successful run in the Yankee/Atlantic 10 Conference before making the leap to the Football Bowl Subdivision in 2000. The Huskies’ meteoric rise in the Big East under coach Randy Edsall culminated in a trip to the Fiesta Bowl after the 2009 season. The Huskies fell on hard times after Edsall bolted for Maryland, but they hope a new coach (Bob Diaco) will get them back on track in 2014.

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Notes about UConn’s unis:

• UConn may lead this project in total uniform styles. The Huskies can never find a look to satisfy them. It’s only because UConn’s yearbooks are online that I’ve been able to document their ever-changing look.
• The Huskies seemed to make radical overhauls almost every year from 1963-77 and again from 1999-2004. If you didn’t like a uniform, sit tight; UConn would likely change it next year.
• Team colors have changed frequently. Gold pants were used from about 1953-63. Red was used on and off from 1971-2001 and reintroduced in 2013. Royal blue replaced navy blue from 1968-88. Silver trim was used from 2002-08.
• UConn used eight helmet designs from 1961-68, including one that was blue on one side and white on the other. And you thought the current helmets were out there.
• The latest overhaul was last year, as part of a school-wide rebranding that also coincided with the Big East morphing into the American Athletic Conference. UConn wore eight styles in 12 games.

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Check out the Nutmeg, UConn’s yearbook, here. This has nothing to do with nothing, but the Huskies’ 1970s yearbooks take irreverence to a whole new level.

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The 2013 UConn uniforms (shown above) deserve points for originality, that’s for sure. Those helmets look so … naked from the side, however. They need a uniform number or a “C” or something.

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Our throwback uniform takes us to 1970, when the Huskies won the Yankee Conference title despite a 4-4-2 overall mark (they went 4-0-1 in the league and 0-4-1 in nonleague contests). The Chicago Bears-style wishbone-“C” with the football stitches is probably one of those logos fans think is either really clever or really dumb (I vote with the former). It appeared on their helmets and/or jerseys from 1968-76.

But check out this pic from the 1971 Nutmeg below: Some of the logos were affixed upside-down! Of course, I had to add them here.

Next, we complete our run of FBS schools with the newbie, UMass.

Boston College Eagles (2013, 1984)

When Tom O’Brien was the coach (1997-2006), I thought Boston College was the model college football program: National rankings, high-profile players (Matt Ryan, Mathias Kiwanuka, etc.), bowl games, high graduation rates, no scandals … what’s not to like? The Eagles lost their way for a while after O'Brien left, but second-year coach Steve Addazio appears to have them back on track, as they reached a bowl game for the first time in three years in 2013 and even came up with a dark-horse Heisman Trophy candidate (Andre Williams).

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Notes ’n stuff on BC’s uniforms:

* The gold helmets, crimson shirts and gold pants were first used in 1939, when Frank Leahy became coach and turned the Eagles into a powerhouse for two seasons before he left The Heights for Notre Dame.

* The jerseys and pants have become progressively darker since the 1960s, when they almost looked like USC (check out the 1960s yearbooks for further proof).

* Alternate pants (crimson, white) used since 2000. Gold alternate jersey and Under Armour “Wounded Warrior” red-white-and-blue uniform used in 2012.

* Names were first used in 1974, removed by coach Tom Coughlin in 1991, restored by O’Brien in 2001 and removed again in 2013 when Addazio took over.

* No logo has ever appeared on the helmets. Numbers were used for a few years from late 50s-early 60s and again on the Wounded Warrior uni.

* Under Armour has manufactured the uniforms since 2010.

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You can go “under the tower” and check out “Sub Turri,” the BC yearbook, here. The 1985 edition is pretty much one giant Flutie-fest. I approve. 

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The 2013 Boston College uniform (above) kept it pretty simple. The white jersey/red pants combo was used only once, and there were no alternate jerseys after the Eagles used two in 2012. I know the Eagles wore a patch for their bowl game; I’ll get to it eventually. :)

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For the “classic” look, we’ll go back to the glory days of Dan Henning and the gambling scandal … just kidding. 1984. Doug Flutie. You know the rest. Weird how the white jerseys came with and without sleeve numbers. As with Rhode Island and UConn during this time period, some (not all) of the jerseys and pants had the Champion logo on them. I need to add a white jersey with the Cotton Bowl logo on the shoulders.

Up next: the UConn Huskies.

Delaware Blue Hens (2013, 1967-71)

And we delve into the first of our “other places,” with a longtime CAA/Atlantic 10/Yankee Conference member that played some league teams (Maine, UNH, UMass) semi-regularly prior to its 1985 entry into the good ol’ YC. 

Delaware has one of the more enviable histories of anyone in this project: The Blue Hens are (usually) in contention for an FCS title, and claim six national titles. They play in front of 18,000-plus fans week in and week out, which places them ahead of some FBS teams (*COUGH*UMass*COUGH*). And Delaware's the alma mater of a pair of Super Bowl QBs, Rich Gannon and Joe Flacco. Recent seasons have not been as kind, but you figure Delaware will bounce back sooner rather than later.

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Some notes about Delaware’s unis:

• Delaware is easily the most tradition-minded team in the project, which is saying something, considering it’s in the company of Yale and Harvard. It’s not surprising for a team that ran the wing-T - and ran it well - years after it went out of style. Michigan-style helmets, blue jerseys and gold/yellow pants have been part of the package since 1951, when coach Dave Nelson brought the design over from Maine, his previous outpost. 
• The uniforms have been more experimental (curved numbers, funky stripes) over the last decade, but the basic look remains.
• Oddity (I): The helmets used a small old-English “D” in 1965, only to go with the winged look.
• Oddity (II): Delaware opted not to use a college football centennial decal on the helmets in 1969, as other teams did. Instead, the Hens placed a patch on the jersey shoulders.  

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The Blue Hens' yearbook, called (of course) the Blue Hen, can be found here.

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Delaware’s recent uniforms (shown above) have been made by Under Armour. The colors are noticeably lighter than in the past. The six small stars on the back of the shirts are for each of Delaware’s national championships (1946, ’63, ’71,’72, ’79, 2003). The first four were via wire polls; ’79 was a D-II title and 2003 was a I-AA (FCS) crown.

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For the “classic” look, we go way back to the late 60s-early 70s, including the aforementioned “100” shoulder patch. The uniform changes from the 1950s-80s were very incremental: A stripe here, a sock there. It takes an eagle eye to notice the changes.

Also, check out the stenciled “Ds” on the socks. The were a staple from the late 1950s until about 1972. Maine wore an “M” on the socks in the 1950s and UConn had something similar in the early ’60s.

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Up next, we take a look at the FBS big boys, starting with the BC Eagles!

Rhode Island Rams (2013, 1983-90)

Lord, it must be tough to be a Rhody fan. No NCAA FCS tournament appearances since 1985; no winning seasons since 2001; a subpar stadium; occasional threats to shut down the program … This is a program for the diehards, all right. At least the Rams have looked good while losing, for the most part.

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Some notes about URI’s uniform history:

• The ram horns on the helmet have been a constant since the early 1960s, except for 1993-99, when an interlocking “RI” was used. The combinations, on the other hand, have been seemingly endless:
• Light blue helmets, white horns;
• Navy helmets, white horns;
• White helmets, navy horns;
• White helmets, light blue horns;
• White helmets, light blue horns outlined in gold;
• Navy helmets, light blue horns (the most recent model).
• Light blue jerseys were used from 1967-2010 before a return to navy in 2011.
• The interlocking “RI” logo, while not always part of the uniform, dates back to at least the 1930s, making it one of the longer-running non-Ivy League logos in the project.

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The Rhody yearbook, the Renaissance (formerly known as the Grist, a much cooler name), can be found here. And this website has been a huge help in my research of more recent uniforms, particularly Rhody and UMass.

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The 2013 uniform is shown above. … Another clean and simple look, but Rhody should really wear light blue. Save the navy for the Black Bears. :) Note that the navy blue on the shirts doesn’t quite match the navy on the pants. I believe the white pants were new for ’13.

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For the “classic” look, we’ll go back to the 1980s glory years, when URI reached three NCAA I-AA (now FCS) tournaments from 1981-85, including an NCAA semifinal appearance in ’84. The time period when Rhody wore gold exactly matches Bob Griffin’s stint as head coach (1976-92). The Rams never wore gold before or since. Some, but not all, the jerseys and pants sported the Champion manufacturers’ logo. 

I always thought the Rams looked like the bastard children of the pre-2000 L.A./St. Louis Rams and the late-60s/early-70s San Diego Chargers, but I liked this style and I was bummed out when I attended a Maine-Rhody game in college (1994) and saw the Rams changed to a more conventional look. You’re called the Rams! Wear horns! Ahem.

URI wore “block” numbers the last three years of this style (1990-92).

Pardon the off-white background for the vintage Rhody units; I'm not sure how they got that way, but I'll try to fix it.

Next week, we’ll introduce the final CAA team in this project, the Delaware Blue Hens.

New Hampshire Wildcats (2010-13, 1998)

There are two guarantees to UNH football year in and year out: An NCAA tournament appearance and a win over arch-rival Maine for the Brice-Cowell Musket. The Wildcats have reached 10 consecutive NCAA FCS tournaments, and have defeated Maine 11 times in their last 12 outings, including a pair of wins last season. The loss of revolutionary offensive coordinator (and UNH grad) Chip Kelly to Oregon after the 2006 season didn’t slow UNH down a bit. As long as coach Sean McDonnell is around, one figures the Wildcats will always be in the NCAA title hunt.

The current stadium, Cowell Stadium - a place so hideous that the school pretty much acknowledges it openly, marketing it as “the dungeon” - is in the process of being replaced by a $25-million facility. If you’re a UNH fan, these are the good ol’ days. 

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Some notes about UNH’s uniform history:

• UNH is a fairly tradition-based team. The basic look (silver helmets, blue/silver uniforms) has been around since 2003. The uniform was virtually unchanged from 1976-99, when red trim was used.
• Silver was originally used in 1950s and ’60s.
• Nike has made the home jerseys since 2001, when UNH overhauled its football uniforms following a rebranding the year before. In 2000, UNH’s helmets sported the new logo, but the older jerseys with red trim hung around for another year.
• Oddity: For several years, UNH had two different jersey manufacturers. In the late ’90s, Wilson made the home shirts and Russell handled the roads. From 2001-06, Nike made the homes and Wilson did the roads. This may go back even further, as the “classic” 80s jerseys had those Champion-style numbers (slanted 2s, curved 7s) at home, but the roads used smaller, blockier numbers.

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Slooooowly but surely, UNH is adding yearbooks to its digital archives: Check out "The Granite" here. It's amazing how little Cowell Stadium has changed over the decades.

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The 2013 uniform (see above) had a nice, clean look. Note: Some, but not all, jerseys had the “straight” 2s; others had the “slanted” 2s (see illustration). Some, but not all, jerseys had the “Packer”-style 5’s; other had “straight-across” 5s. I chose the “Packer” 5s because, well, I think they rock. UNH used this look from 2009-13 (home) and 2010-13 (road). The Wildcats have unveiled new uniforms for 2014. I’ll try to get them on here once they hit the field for an actual game.

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The “classic” UNH uniform takes us to 1998, when Jerry Azumah ran his way to the Walter Payton Award as the best player in Division I-AA (now the Football Championship Subdivision) and went on to a Pro Bowl career with the Chicago Bears.

As noted above, UNH had this basic look from 1976-99, with only a few tweaks along the way — a run of longevity matched by only Yale and Delaware in this project. The ’90s are a bit of a minefield, in regards to the location of manufacturers’ logos and the name and number fonts. UNH appears to have mostly worn a serif font for the names in ’98; it wouldn’t shock me if the Wildcats wore sans-serif names that year, too. We’ll look at other variations of this classic design as we go along.

Up next: The Rhode Island Rams.

Maine Black Bears (2011-13, 1965)

And so we begin this long and winding project with my alma mater, the Maine Black Bears, who field competitive teams despite a tight budget and a location that’s … well, I’m not sure a GPS could find Orono, Maine in winter. Despite the obstacles, coach Jack Cosgrove’s Black Bears have reached the NCAA FCS tournament three of the last six seasons and have sent several players to the NFL (and yes, I know that includes Jovan Belcher). Now if they could only beat UNH once in a while. … 

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Here are some notes and rules of thumb regarding Maine:

* The basic template has been unchanged since 1949: Navy helmet and jersey. Blue pants were used from 1949-54 and were resurrected in 2000.

* Names were used in 1980 and again from 1985-93.

* Some experimentation: Black pants were used from 1997-99 and a light blue alternate was worn from 2008-10. Red-trimmed socks worn on and off from late 1950s-1972.

* Oddity: When making a uniform change, Maine typically switches one set of jerseys one year, then the other set the next year to match. For example, Maine changed its road jerseys  in 2010, then changed the blue shirts to match the whites in 2011. Other times this was done: 1976-77, 1985-86, 1995-96, 2001-02. I’m guessing it’s because UMaine could often afford to change only one set at a time, but that’s total speculation. 

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You can find pix from the late, great Prism yearbook here.

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Above are the 2013 uniforms: A fairly clean, simple design. Last season, Maine won the Colonial Athletic Association title, its first outright league title since 1965. 

(Just an FYI: The Yankee Conference, which formed in 1947 and originally consisted of the six New England land-grant institutions, morphed into the Atlantic 10 in 1997 and the CAA in 2007. Original members Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island are still in the league today.)

Leave it to arch-rival UNH to spoil Maine’s party, as the Wildcats crushed the Black Bears in the regular-season finale, then knocked them off in the NCAA FCS tournament two weeks later. I’m still in recovery mode. …

Maine will have new uniforms this season, made by New Balance, which also makes the school’s baseball and basketball uniforms and ponied up some dough for the naming rights to the field house, currently under renovation. I can’t think of any other college football team with New Balance unis, but someone out there probably does ... just maybe not in Division I. The “Black Bears” wordmark returns to the front of the home jerseys after a four-year absence. I’ll get ‘em on here once they see game action.

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For our “classic” look, here's the aforementioned 1965 team, which is the first (and, almost certainly, the last) Maine team to reach a bowl game. Maine went 8-2, ran the table in the Yankee Conference and lost to East Carolina in the Tangerine Bowl. Personally, I’d love to see the Michigan-style helmets make a comeback someday, but that might be like waiting for the snow to melt in eastern Maine.

Maine wore the bear shoulder patch on the road jerseys from 1963-72, with the bears facing in from 1963-67 and out from 1968-72. The blue shirt with the bear patches was worn only for the Tangerine Bowl. The trim on the road jerseys, from my research, was light blue when the style was introduced in 1963, and dark blue trim was introduced in 1965 as light blue was phased out. The two styles were worn simultaneously, but by 1967, only dark blue trim was worn.

Number 32 was worn by linebacker John Huard, a two-time first-team college division All-American who later played for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and Denver Broncos and coached a bit on the CFL. He was recently elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, the first Maine player to receive that honor.

Coming up next: the New Hampshire Wildcats!

Hi, and thanks for checking in. The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the history of college football uniforms in New England … and a few other places.

“Planned” wouldn’t be the right word to describe this project; “evolved” would be more like it. A few years back, I discovered my alma mater, the University of Maine, had the foresight to post all its old yearbooks (the late, somewhat great “Prism”) online. I found myself looking through the sports chapters, and next thing I knew, I was recording the old football uniforms on an ancient paint program on an ancient bubble-shaped iMac.

Soon, I discovered other schools were putting their old yearbooks and/or student newspapers online, and, well, one thing led to another. And now, it’s time to share that obsession.

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Here are the ground rules: The schools featured here are all NCAA Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision) schools based (mostly) in New England:

Colonial Athletic Association: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware.

Ivy League: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale.

Football Bowl Subdivision: Boston College, UConn, UMass.

Patriot League: Holy Cross.

Northeast Conference: Bryant, Central Connecticut, Sacred Heart.

Defunct Teams: Boston University, Fairfield, Northeastern, Vermont.

That’s 23 schools total. Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Princeton are in because I wanted to include all the Ivy League schools. Delaware is in because of its long history in the CAA and its predecessors (the Atlantic 10 and Yankee Conference). Also, it played schools like Maine, UNH and UMass on a regular basis long before it joined the old YC in 1985.

I’ll introduce each school one at a time, 2-3 times per week, over the next couple months.  With each post will be a little background about the team, some notes about its uniform history, and an illustration of its 2013 uniform, plus one uniform from the past. For example, the first UMass post will feature its 2013 uniform (with a mere 11 variations in 12 games), plus a design from the 1970s glory years. Once we do that for all 23 schools, I’ll post more historical designs for each school. This should keep us busy for a while. :)

On occasion, I’ll use the name/number of a prominent player from a school’s history.

For now, we’re going to concentrate on the last 50-60 years, but I have plenty of info on the “leatherheads” era, too.

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This project would not be possible without the schools and universities for placing their yearbooks and students newspaper online. Even with all of this info out there, it can be a bear to keep track of schools such as UConn and Columbia that used to change their look on an almost yearly basis. Where applicable, I’ll throw out a link to each school’s yearbook/newspaper site as we go along.

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In a day or two, we’ll begin the fun with my Black Bears and go from there! Thanks again for checking in!