Bryant (2018-19), Central Connecticut (2018-19), Merrimack (2019), Sacred Heart (2018-19)

Talk about a mental lapse the size of an offensive line. I knew Merrimack College (North Andover, Mass.) was moving up to Division I from D-II for the 2019-20 school year; it wasn't until the last week or so when I realized, "Oh, yeah, I've got a new team to add to the site!" So welcome aboard, Merrimack; that boosts the number of current D-I programs featured here to 20. Let's take a look at this year's uniforms from Merrimack and fellow Northeast Conference teams Bryant, Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart. Since I basically blew off the NEC teams last year (apologies!), we'll include the 2018 uniforms from Bryant, CCSU and SHU, too.

Bryant (6-5, 2-4 in 2018; 4-8, 3-4 in '19) kept its basic black-and-gold look in 2018 before it phased out the gold pants in '19 (worn just once) in favor of black and white versions. The Bulldogs modified their home and road jerseys, but there are subtle differences; the homes have the Bryant wordmark in the school font and the numbers in a traditional font; the roads have Bryant in a traditional block serif font (like last year), but curved numbers. 

Central Connecticut (6-5, 4-2 in '18; 11-2, 7-0 and an NCAA FCS Tournament berth in '19) kept the basic look it's had the last few years, but the Blue Devils modified their road unis in '19 to better match the homes. The '18 jerseys come with and without the NEC patch on the front.

Merrimack (6-5, not eligible for NEC title but 1-3 against NEC foes) had a winning record, although three wins were over non D-I teams and a fourth was over fellow D-I newbie LIU (formerly D-II C.W. Post). The Warriors' uniforms are pretty simple, but the program's first uniforms from the late '90s (coming soon to a post near you!) make the current duds resemble Oregon's. Yale was the only other team on this site to not wear any alternate helmets or jerseys, or mix and match their unis. One oddity: The home jerseys have shoulder numbers, while the roads do not.

Sacred Heart (7-4, 5-1 and co-NEC champs in '18; 7-5, 4-3 in '19), on the other hand, did plenty of mixing and matching, particularly with the helmets in '19. The Pioneers wore their regular helmets; the star-spangled helmets they usually wear the first couple games of the season; and a helmet with a throwback pioneer logo used in the 1990s (look closely; it bears a passing resemblance to a certain beloved NFL logo). The jerseys and pants, including the hideous all-gray ensemble, remained unchanged. The 9/11 star-spangled jersey, first worn in 2017, wasn't worn in '18 but returned in '19.

Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island (2019)

Our look at the uniforms of 2019 continues with four CAA teams. The eight Ivy League schools were reviewed here.

Delaware (5-7 overall, 3-5 CAA, tied for ninth) keep the exact same look from last year, right down to the exact same combinations. The only difference was the addition of the College Football 150 patch, worn by all four teams profiled here.

Maine (6-6, 4-4, tied for fifth) took a tumble after 2018's dream season, when the Black Bears destroyed UNH, beat an FBS team, won the CAA outright and reached the FCS final four. This year, it was return to the usual .500 or so season capped with a loss to UNH. Maine kept last year's terrific uniform and, for one game, wore the classic winged helmet of yore. (Read more about the greatest helmet ever here, here and here.) Maine joined Penn and Princeton in adding throwback elements for college football's 150th birthday season.

New Hampshire (6-5, 5-3, tied for third) climbed back above .500 after 2018's disaster ended the Wildcats' 14-year NCAA FCS tournament run with a thud, but failed to return to the tourney this year. The one difference from last year's uniform was a change in the blue alternate helmet, which changed to a Wildcat mascot head on each side after having a throwback logo on one side and a number on the other. The blue lid ended up seeing more playing time than the traditional sliver versions -- I have blue appearing in seven games to silver's four.

Rhode Island (2-10, 0-8, 12th and dead last) achieved a dubious distinction on the field, when the Rams had more HERO FCS All-Americans (three) than wins (two). Rhody modified its light blue and white jerseys while keeping the navy shirts from last year. The Rams trotted out four different sets of pants, including those gray camo pants that just won't go away.

Ivy League 2019

We’ll kick off our look back at the uniforms of 2019 with the Ivy League, since its season is the first to finish among the teams covered here (insert rant about Ivies not being allowed in the FCS playoffs here).

Before we start, a little aside: The Ivy League debuted a new logo before the season, which appears on the home pages of the league and its member teams … along with the old logo, which dates back to the 1980s (I think). Talk about confusion in the marketplace, especially when you read this link. Apparently, it's intended to be alternate logo that emphasizes the athletic aspect of the Ivies. I'd love to know how a change in font and a reduction in the number of leaves does that, but hey, it's a nice logo.

In with the new ...

... out with the old (sorta, kinda).

And now, in order of finish …

Dartmouth (9-1 overall, 6-1 Ivy) grabbed a share of its league-record 19th Ivy title. (The Big Green should have ran the table, but somehow lost to Cornell at home in Week 9, but that’s a rant for another time.) After a few years of mixing and matching styles (in both 2015 and ’16, the Greenies wore NINE different uniforms in 10 games*), Dartmouth has returned to the basics with only three combos: Black and silver helmets and pants were tossed out the door, and the black alternate shirt was one twice. The college football 150th anniversary patch was worn on the green and white shirts but, oddly, not the black versions.

*Trivial trivia: The record for most single-season combos by any team on this site is the otherwise forgettable 2013 UMass team, which trotted out 11 styles in 12 games.

Yale (9-1, 6-1, only loss to Dartmouth) had to rally past Harvard — and a horde of climate activists — in overtime to earn a split of the Ivy crown.  The Bulldogs kept it simple again: No alternates, no mixing and matching … you know what you’re going to get. The only difference from last year is that the Carm Cozza memorial patch was removed, making this year’s uniform identical to that of 2016 and ’17. (No 150 patch? Boo!)

Princeton (8-2 overall, 5-2 Ivy) appeared to have a chance to run the table for the second straight year, but back-to-back losses to Dartmouth and Yale dashed those hopes. The Dartmouth game, played at Yankee Stadium, was deemed the Tigers’ official 150th anniversary game, Princeton having played in the very first game in 1869 and all that. (Princeton should have faced Rutgers, its 1869 foe, this year. I’d give the Tigers pretty good odds, seeing how the Knights have stunk up the Bee-One-Gee the last few years.) Princeton wore some pretty fun — and funky — duds against the Big Green, a mash-up of previous styles over the last century and a half, including big, fat orange-and-black stripes on the sleeves and socks. Not sure what anyone else thought, but I liked it. Everything else was the same was last year, except the orange shirt was matched with the black pants for the first time, I believe.

Penn (5-5, 3-4) remained stuck in its post-Al Bagnoli run of mediocrity. From a uniform standpoint, the highlight was the return of the 1970s red helmet in celebration of the 125 anniversary of venerable Franklin Field. A red alternate jersey, which matches the navy and white shirts, also was introduced. A first-rate uni, sez I. The white alternate helmet, introduced last year, was dropped. 

Speaking of mediocrity, Cornell (4-6, 3-4) had it in droves, both on the field  (well, except for a how’d-that-happen win at Dartmouth, denying the Big Green an undefeated season) and in the wardrobe department. The Big Red tinkered with its helmet for the 2,000th time while still retaining the “C” logo. Then the fun begins; Cornell ditched its plain white pants from last year and brought back its 2017 pants (red and white, each with a different pattern). Next, the Big Red introduced that rarest of birds — a WHITE alternate jersey, which uses curved numbers and names on the back. If you look at the graphic above, you’ll see that Cornell’s three jerseys don’t have a consistent look, unlike, say, Penn or Harvard. The pants, as mentioned, also have their own distinct pattern. In the end, you have a ginormous mess, and a team badly in need of an overhaul. 

One other note: The white road jersey still has that antiquated NCAA Football logo on the front, beamed in from 2002. Does any other team use that patch, other than the game officials?

Harvard (a very un-Harvard-like 4-6, 2-5) kept the same basic look its had the last few years. Two items of note: 1) The Crimson did not wear the college football 150 patch, since it likes to think it invented football in 1874; 2) Harvard wore a special patch for one game to commemorate the 1919 Rose Bowl team (covered here).

Columbia (3-7, 2-5) also didn’t change much from previous seasons, except for the introduction of gray alternate pants. The gray jersey from last year, ironically, was dropped. Also, the black pants, last worn in 2016, was revived. The Lions added the 150 patch, and kept the “67” patch, worn in honor of former player, coach and administrator Bill Campbell.  The Lions' seven uniform combos were the most by an Ivy team in '19.

Brown (2-6, 1-7) didn’t change a darn thing from last year, despite a new coach. Not even a 150 patch. I’ve always been conflicted about Brown’s logo — the ivy-tinged “B” is one of the classiest logos in sports, but it would be nice if a team called the Bears had, ya know, a bear logo in there somewhere. On the field, the Bears won their first Ivy game in three years, snapping a 20-game skid.

Next, we’ll look at the CAA teams featured on this site (Maine, UNH, Rhody, Delaware).

Dartmouth Big Green (1925)

Dartmouth College owns 18 — whoops, make that 19 — Ivy League championships, the most of any Ancient Eight school, but in 1925 the Big Green claimed a piece of something even bigger — an honest-to-god national championship. Again as with the previous couple posts, much of the info below comes from Tip Top 25.

Your 1925 national champions. Yes, really.

Under coach Jess Hawley, Dartmouth was in the middle of pretty hot run, having gone 7-0-1 in 1924 (Tip Top has the Green tied for No. 4 nationally in a hypothetical AP poll) and 8-1 in ’23 (No. 9), Hawley’s first season. Just to show that everything old really is new again, Hawley installed a spread passing attack when he took the helm of his alma mater. Yes, a spread passing attack in the 1920s, when ground-and-pound was the name of the game and continued to be for the next several decades.

The main cog in Dartmouth’s offense was Hall of Fame halfback Andy “Swede” Oberlander, who ran for 12 TDs and threw for 14 more. In a 62-13 win over Cornell, Oberlander was 11-for-14 passing for 317 yards and 6 TDs, and ran for 160 yards and two more scores. No, those are not Lamar Jackson’s numbers at Louisville. Those type of passing numbers with the fat football and a ran-first mentality (well, outside of Hanover) is just insane. I've discussed Cornell’s irascible coach, Gil Dobie, here and here; well, here's his response to the Big Red's lopsided loss: “We won the game 13-0. Passing is not football.” 

No dumb jock, Oberlander later received his MD from Yale Law School and was medical director for a number of insurance companies. 

Andy Oberlander's bio from the 1926 Aegis yearbook,
back when players of his height and weight could dominate a game.

I really can't add much to the caption already presented here.

End George Tully and guard Carl Diehl were Dartmouth’s other consensus All-Americans, in addition to Oberlander. Halfback Myles Lane, in addition to being a college football Hall of Famer, later played in the National Hockey League for the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins -- he was only the third American-born player in NHL history -- and was a New York Supreme Court justice in his post-athletic days.

Myles Lane's bio from the 1926 Aegis.

After huffing and puffing past mighty Norwich, Hobart, Vermont and Maine by a combined 199-0, Dartmouth routed Harvard, Brown, Cornell (discussed earlier) and, in the key game, Chicago 33-7 to claim the national title. The Big Green turned down a Rose Bowl invite in order to stay home for the holidays. Alabama took the spot, defeated Washington in Pasadena, and made its own claim for the national crown. … decades later. 

Tip Top 25 proclaims Dartmouth the No. 1 team, with ‘Bama acknowledged as a co-champion. The Crimson Tide had a weak schedule (this was before Southern teams caught up with the East and Midwest in terms of ability, that was about a decade away) dotted with a couple narrow wins over poor teams. Dartmouth’s schedule, as you can see above, also was pretty weak (Tip Top proclaims it the weakest of any of its mythical champs from 1901-25), but the Big Green had no narrow wins, and the two best teams it faced (Cornell and Chicago) resulted in blowout wins.

The uniforms were typical fare for the period, with the jerseys almost, but not quite, matching — some friction stripes here, some padding there, everything else plain. 

Minus Oberlander, Dartmouth slipped to 4-4 in ’26, but bounced back with a 7-1 mark in ’27.

Brown Bears (1926-27)

Our next team in our roundup of old-time Eastern powerhouses is the 1926 Brown Bears, known as the “Iron Men” after their starting 11 played every minute of back-to-back wins over Yale and Dartmouth. The Iron Men also played nearly every minute in a win over Harvard. (The subs played the final two minutes so they could earn their varsity letters, a classy touch.) 

The Iron Men, in all their glory. This and the following photos
are all from the Brown Daily Herald archive.

The Bears went 9-0-1 for the only undefeated team in program history and outscored their foes, 223-35. Sounds like one of history’s greatest, right? Well, Lee Corso wasn’t born for another nine years, so he wasn't around to say “Not so fast, my friend!” 

Tip Top 25’s review of the 1926 season notes that Brown didn’t defeat any major team with a winning record. The other wins came over the likes of Rhode Island, Colby, Lehigh, Bates, Norwich and New Hampshire — today, that’s two CAA teams, two NESCAC teams, a Patriot League team and  … (pauses to look up Norwich’s league) a NEWMAC team. Not exactly the Big Ten. The tie was against Colgate, which Tip Top has tied with Brown at No. 15 in its hypothetical AP Top 25. Still, it was a pretty amazing team, especially given Old Bruno's rather spotty grid history. Tip Top has plenty more info on the ’26 Bears in the link above, give it a read.

The Iron Men, according to Wikipedia, were: Thurston Towle, Paul Hodge, Orland Smith, Charles Considine, Lou Farber, Ed Kevorkian, Hal Broda, Al Cornsweet, Dave Mishel, Ed Lawrence and Roy Randall. Randall, a back, and Broda, an end, were All-Americans. 

All-Americans Roy Randall ...

... and Hal Broda.

The coach was first-year mentor DeOrmand “Tuss” McLaughry, who’s the answer to a trivia question: Who’s the only College Football Hall of Fame coach with a losing record? His final record was 143-149-13 at Westminster, Amherst, Brown and Dartmouth (where he ran that program into the ground before he was replaced by Bob Blackman in 1955). 

Tuss McLaughry, owner
of a dubious distinction.

The uniforms, also used in 1927, came in two varieties: Plain, and with friction stripes and pads to help better secure the football. By 1928, all the jerseys were “padded.”

We’re going to move back a year for our next team, an Ivy League school that bagged its only national championship and made everyone "green" with envy (har-har). 

Harvard Crimson (1919-25)

Recently, I’ve been digging through Tip Top 25, which can be quite the rabbit hole if you have an interest in the history of college football, particularly from the first half of the 20th century. The site attempts to “fix” the season-ending AP polls going back to the first one in 1936, and also creates hypothetical polls from 1901-35. The latter is where the real interest lies for me, since it’s the era when teams from the East (and, thus, teams in this project) where actually relevant in college football before the Ivy League isolated itself from the rest of the world and was content to pad out its non-league schedules with Yankee Conference and Patriot League teams. 

The next several posts will take a look at some of these mythical national title contenders from that era (I wonder what a mythical national title trophy looks like?), beginning with the 1919 Harvard squad, since this is the 100th anniversary of the Crimson’s first, last and only Rose Bowl appearance. (Harvard even wore a commiserative Rose Bowl patch for a game earlier this season.) Much of the information here comes from Tip Top 25's articles on the 1919 season.

The 1919 Harvard Crimson. I had to dig through the 1920 Oregona
yearbook to find this one.

The Crimson went 9-0-1 in ’19 to claim a share of the national title; Harvard claims 13, most of them from college football Mesozoic era (this was No. 12; the Cantabs added No. 13 in ’20). Much of Harvard’s schedule was frankly weak, padded with wins over the likes of Bates, Colby, Springfield and Tufts (geez, guys, why don’t you just join NESCAC?). Other victims included Boston College — one of only four times the Crimson and Eagles have ever played in football, all coinciding with world wars —  Virginia and Yale, plus a tie with Princeton. 

Harvard accepted a berth in what was then called the Tournament of Roses game (the Rose Bowl stadium wasn’t built for a new more years) in order to generate interest in a fundraising campaign. The Crimson defeated the Oregon Webfoots (hey, that’s what Wikipedia says that was their handle then) 7-6 on a 15-yard TD run by substitute Freddy Church. Oregon missed several field goal attempts, and a Harvard clock-killing drive in the fourth quarter sealed the win. According to the Tip Top article, Harvard’s appearance helped propel the game from a post-season novelty into a major sporting event, one that continues to rivet the nation to this day. Who knew?

The star of the team was 150-pound halfback Eddie Casey, a College Football Hall of Famer, who was the MVP of the Rose Bowl and later served as Harvard's head coach.

With an undefeated season and a Rose Bowl win seems like a national championship from the surface, apparently that was not the case for Harvard. Eastern writers in 1919 thought Penn State was a better team (the Nittany Lions defeated top-10 teams Dartmouth, Penn and Pitt, while Harvard’s only ranked victims were top-20 Princeton and Oregon) and Tip Top rates the Crimson at a still-respectable No. 5, had there been an AP poll then. Tip Top has the '20 Crimson at No. 2 behind Rose Bowl-winning Cal.

Harvard’s uniforms, as you can see, were pretty basic: Crimson jersey, socks and helmet (I think; I wouldn’t be shocked if brown headgear was worn instead), and some jerseys had a big felt square on the front (the better to keep those footballs in place when carrying the ball!). This was Harvard’s basic look until 1926, when friction stripes replaced the squares  the front. I wouldn’t be shocked if other designs were out there awaiting discovery; I’m just dipping my toes into research for 1920s uniforms. 

Next time, we’ll look a team of iron men who played 60 minutes a game. No specialist wimps need apply!

Yeah, well, you still missed a bunch of field goal attempts.
Geez, even then the Ducks were an arrogant bunch.

UMass Redmen (1963)

OK, so it’s not easy being a UMass football fan these days. An ill-advised move from the FCS Colonial Athletic Association to the FBS Mid-America Conference — with a long-term goal of joining what was then called the Big East (now American Athletic Conference) — blew up in the Minutemen’s faces like a faulty musket. Now UMass now wanders the lonely streets of FBS independence, suffering blowouts at the hands of FBS wannabes like Liberty, Charlotte and Southern Illinois in front of meager crowds. (What, you mean the Salukis are still FCS? Oops.) 

Even worse, the Minutemen are so bad the likes of Dan Shaughnessy, who feasts off failure like a hungry defense feasts off bad QBs, are breathing down their necks. (Do a Google search if you want to read what he said; like hell I’m going to link Shank here.) 

Needless to say, the move to FBS has been a disaster from day one. 

But the situation wasn’t always so gloomy in Amherst. From 1960 to about 2007, the University of Massachusetts had one of New England’s elite programs more often than not. Although I went to conference rival Maine, I enthusiastically cheered on the Minutemen when they steamrolled to the 1998 FCS (I-AA) title, the first national championship in the school’s history in any sport. Years earlier, UMass beat the likes of Boston College and Dartmouth (back when the Ivy League was considered to have some of New England’s finest team). At one point in the 1960s, UMass went 24-1 in Yankee Conference (the CAA’s predecessor) competition. 

Which brings us to 1963 — the most dominant season in UMass history — hell, one of the most dominant seasons anyone in New England ever had.

The dream team of 1963.

Keep in mind that college football as a whole was a very different game then, with a heavy emphasis on running, defense and not making mistakes — which made for some very conservative football. There were no 62-54 basketball-like scores then. That disclaimer out of the way, let’s break down the numbers for the ’63 Redmen (as they were called then):

UMass  Team Them

8 Wins 0 (one tie)

3,060 Total yds. 475

146 1st downs 85

12 TD passes 0

24 Def. INTs      5

265 Points 12

Check the last number on the bottom right. That’s not a misprint. That reads 12. 

T-W-E-L-V-E. All season. Even elite defensive teams today will surrender 12 points in a quarter. 

Don’t believe me? Here, check the scores, ripped straight from the UMass record book: 

UMass allowed one touchdown, one field goal and one safety all season. That’s all. 

Lest you think every team played like this in the olden days, the ’62 team, which went 6-2, allowed 111 points; the ’64 team. which went 8-2 and ran the table in the YC again, allowed a “whopping” 76. Even by 1960s standards, this was one amazing defense. On a “big-time” level, the only team from that era with an accomplishment similar to that of UMass would be the 1961 Alabama team that won the national title while allowing 25 points all year.

UMass was picked to win the Yankee Conference by Sports Illustrated on the strength of nearly 20 regulars returning, including quarterback Jerry Whelchel and ends Bob Meers and Milt Morin (who went on to a distinguished NFL career with the Cleveland Browns).

These photos are all from the 1964 UMass Index yearbook.
I'll step aside and let the captions do the talking.

The season began innocuously enough with a come-from-behind 14-7 win over Maine, a two-TD underdog. But no one dreamed that Maine QB Dick DeVarney’s TD run 10:25 into the first period would mark the only time all season a UMass foe entered the end zone. “The next 529 minutes, 35 seconds found the UMass goal line more difficult to cross than the Berlin Wall,” the Massachusetts Collegian wrote in its season wrap-up.

The next week brought a scoreless tie at Harvard, which went on to finish 5-2-2, 4-2-1 in Ivy League play. Next was a 21-0 win over Bucknell and a 21-3 decision over UConn (UMass, feeling generous, allowed the Huskies to make a field goal). Then the Redmen stopped pussyfooting and dealt four straight shutouts — Rhode Island (57-0), Boston University (21-0), Vermont (41-0) and American International (42-0) were no match for the UMass juggernaut. The season ended with a 48-2 demolition of New Hampshire, for years the traditional season-ending rivalry game. The only blemish was a UNH sack in the end zone for a safety and two points.

While there was talk about participating in a possible bowl game, the school’s athletic council declined any postseason invites, declaring that “an extension of the season for five weeks would be too much for them.” (UMass did go on to participate in the Tangerine Bowl after the 1964 season, where it lost to East Carolina.)

So who were these guys who allowed only a dozen points? Whelchel, the quarterback, threw for nine TDs and picked off three passes as a defensive back (remember, two-way play was still in vogue then) and kicked 34 extra points. Whelchel, Meers, Morin, tackle Paul Graham and guard Bob Teboldi were named all-Yankee Conference, occupying five of 11 slots (separate teams for offense and defense came later in the decade). Bernie Dallas was a force at linebacker. Another player, linebacker-defensive end Phil Vandersea, went on to play for the Green Bay Packers. Head coach Vic Fusia won the first of five YC titles in his 10-year stint (1961-70) in Amherst. 

Ah, yes, the uniforms. For the first time since the early 1940s, UMass wore red helmets after several seasons in either with or gold headgear. White helmets returned in 1969. The home jerseys resemble those of the St. Louis (football) Cardinals, while the road versions, with gold trim, have their own unique look … well, unique outside of Chestnut Hill. 

While UMass football may have hit the skids, it’s good to recall a time when its dominance was the talk of New England football back when fans’ interest went beyond the top 25 and the power conferences. And if the bad football continues … well, I hear that hockey team is halfway decent.