Friday, September 19, 2014

Boston College Eagles (1968-77)

With Boston College dominating the headlines this week after upsetting USC and my Black Bears visiting The Heights this weekend, I thought we’d take a look at the Eagles’ uniforms from the Joe Yukica years. 
The BC uniforms under coach Jim Miller (1962-67) had a USC look to them: Red shirts with big, yellow numbers and thick, yellow-and-white stripes. Yellow (or, if some of you prefer, gold) pants complete the look. In 1966-67, the jerseys had a uniform number on one sleeve and an eagle on the other. These pics are from the 1967 Sub Turri yearbook:



After Yukica became coach in 1968, the shirts were stripped down to the core, with tiny numbers and no trim. Frankly, they reek of cheapness and look like practice jerseys: 



By 1970, BC was using those Champion-style numbers (slanted 2s, curved 7s) that were a trademark of the Flutie years, although they were considerably larger. Once striped socks were added in '72, the unis resembled the love children of the San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins:





In 1974, the uniforms take another step toward the Flutie-era look: The familiar sleeve stripes and names make their debut. Number 71 was Fred Smerlas, a nose tackle from 1975-78 who had a long NFL career with San Francisco, Buffalo and New England and has also worked in talk radio for many years. He was named to five Pro Bowls.



In 1978, Yukica, who did much to bring BC back to big-time football (the Eagles ditched the VMIs and Richmonds of the world for Notre Dame, Texas, Texas A&M, Florida State and Tennessee during his regime), departed for Dartmouth (which was decidedly not big-time football by that point), and Ed Chlebek took over. Chlebek mostly kept the look of the Yukica years, except the striped socks were gone. And the wins were gone, as well: The Eagles were 0-11 in Chlebek’s first year.

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