Saturday, December 30, 2023

Bryant, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island (2023)

Our next look at the year in uniforms takes us to the Colonial Athletic Association Coastal Athletic Association Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference. How about "The Conference With Too Many Damn Teams"? or "Why won't the America East Conference add football already?"

Anyway, here's a look at the four CAA teams covered on this site, plus Bryant, which is leaving the Big South for the CAA next year, which will raise the conference's membership to 743.

Bryant — anyone else remember when the Patriots trained there in days of yore? — added a white shirt to more closely match the black jerseys introduced last year when the Bulldogs switched to New Balance uniforms. The gold alternate jersey worn last year was left on the bench in '23.

Delaware, which will be leaving the CAA for FBS and Conference USA in 2025, changed its blue jersey to match the white road version, and the blue pants now match the white and yellow versions with the big ol' hen on the right pant leg.

Maine made a few changes this year, which doesn't hide the fact that my Black Bears won two games for the second straight year. The helmet stripe colors were reversed and the script "Maine," last worn in 2015, returned, replacing the Maine logo with the black bear head. Only problem is that the size of the revived logo is tiny — did Maine borrow the decals from the hockey team or something?? And speaking of hockey, Maine added new road jerseys with numbers that mirror those worn by the pucksters. 

Finally, Maine changed its white pants, with a striping pattern that matches the ones on the helmet and navy blue jerseys.

New Hampshire didn't change much from last year, although the white helmets underwent a couple changes throughout the season: The Wildcats had a white wildcat logo for one game, switched to the throwback "NH" logo for homecoming and used a blue wildcat logo the rest of the way.

Rhode Island kept its multitude of jerseys and pants from 2022, and for good measure, added an alternate white uniform, giving the Rams four different shirts and FIVE different pants. But only one helmet? Yeah, I know, helmets are expensive. 😎

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Central Connecticut State, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, Stonehill (2023)

The 2023 parade o' uniforms (slowly) continues with New England four Northeast Conference teams.

Central Connecticut State changed its helmet logo, ditching the blue devil next to the "CC" for a pitchfork. The logo also appears on both sides of the helmet, ditching the logo-on-one-side-uniform-number-on-the-other-side look that I can't stand. The jersey and pants remain unchanged from the last few years; I like the Blue Devils' commitment to consistency.

Merrimack made no real changes from last year, unless you count the return of yellow pants after a year's absence. Honestly, there's not much to complain about the Warriors' uniforms.

Sacred Heart's only real change was an update to the all-gray alternate, which now more closely matches the red and white uniforms. The "PIONEERS" down the side of the gray pants goes in the opposite direction of the red and white versions, which I'm sure will ruin a lot people's breakfast. 😎

Stonehill changed its jerseys and pants, adding a more contemporary number font while switching to more traditional sleeves. The helmets remained unchanged.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Ivy League (2023)

OK, enough procrastination, it's time to kick off the uniforms of 2023. We start with the Ivy League, and we'll look at each team in alphabetical order.

In a nice touch, all eight teams wore a green-and-white "BT" decal on the back of their helmets in honor of former Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens, who passed away in September.

Brown made no real changes from 2022 other than mixing up a combo or two. I made this comment last year, and I'll repeat it here: I still say there either needs to be some red trim on the shirts or ditch red from the helmets and pants entirely; the uniform just looks mismatched otherwise. 



Cornell added a new home jersey to match the ones the Big Red wear on the road, and also introduced black alternate pants, which, like the NBA In-Season Tournament and the Boston Bruins' new lemon-meringue sweaters, is an answer to a question that nobody asked.


Columbia, alas, wore "only" eight combinations after having 10 each of the last two seasons. But the Lions made up for it by restoring light blue as the primary home jersey color after years of black and navy shirts. (Navy was still used for a couple games.) I prefer the white helmets to the navy version, but nothing about this uniform is actively bad.


Dartmouth, like Brown, made no changes other than a combo change or two. Why change the best helmets in the Ivy League?


Harvard made no changes, other than the addition of a patch celebrating the 150th anniversary of the football program. (I personally thought the Crimson should have worn a helmet with the slogan "The REAL Football Sesquicentennial," in the style of their 100th anniversary helmets in 1974.) One other note: With the decreased use of knee pads, many players wear their pants super-short these days. Take a look at this photo gallery; is it me or has Harvard taken the biker-shorts look to eleven? 


Penn introduced new home and road jerseys, with the most notable difference being a switch to white numbers at home and blue on the road after previously using red on both versions. The white helmets and red alternate shirts (a personal favorite of mine) returned for another run.


Princeton made some interesting alterations this season. The Tigers introduced a new alternate uniform with black tiger stripes on white shirts and pants, a la the Cincinnati Bengals. They also hauled the orange pants, last worn in 2017, out of retirement, giving Princeton more than passing resemblance to Oregon State.


Yale kept things pretty simple except for the homecoming game, where the Bulldogs broke out blue helmets and pants. You may recall they wore a blue 150th anniversary helmet in 2022; this one is kinda similar, except the stripes and the "Y" on the sides are white.