Column: I think I love Wyoming’s new field design

May 9, 2013 Column, Featured No Comments

Sometimes I think Wyoming gets a bad wrap. To field a major college football program in the state of Wyoming takes a certain level of bravery, or perhaps stupidity, yet Wyoming has been doing it for a long time, first as a founding member of the WAC and later one of the original Mountain West Conference members. Sure, Wyoming may not be the most competitive program out there. Bill Clinton was in office the last time Wyoming had consecutive winning seasons. Over the last decade the casual college football fans probably know more about Wyoming’s uniforms than Jay Novacek, who went from the Wyoming Cowboys to the Dallas Cowboys during their 1990s Super Bowl years (after a stop in the Cardinals organization). You can credit that to ESPN’s humorous Bottom 10 feature during the college football season, which had a reserved spot for Wyoming’s uniforms.

Wyoming’s brown and yellow colors tend to yield some dull uniform options, but I actually think Wyoming has found a way to make them work. You know I can be picky about uniforms. I used to think Wyoming was a bit of a wreck, but over time I have grown to respect how Wyoming has committed to owning the color scheme and finding ways to make it work. I may not like the all-yellow uniforms, but this is a basic uniform philosophy across the board I just cannot get on board with. It’s not you Wyoming, it’s me.

Wyoming football certainly does not have a pool of talent to recruit from within the state boundaries. Wyoming is the least populated state in the country and as you might expect, the program is relatively isolated. This does not mean success in football is unfounded. At the FCS level we have seen Montana and Montana State build reputable programs and North Dakota State has thrived at the FCS level as well. If Wyoming was playing at the FCS level, would they be able to have similar success? It would be overly speculative to assume so but with the right guidance and commitment anything would be possible. Mountain West Conference rival Boise State has become the model program in the region.

But I think the image is changing for Wyoming. I am not anywhere near saying we have a Boise State clone in the making, although I would definitely encourage the program to emulate the Broncos as closely as possible without losing their identity. But over the past couple of years I think Wyoming has taken some measures to try and build some excitement about the program. The latest move was a redesign of the field and end zones on the football field, which received high praise around the college football blogosphere this week.

Via Wyoming Athletics

The design above is what Wyoming’s field at War Memorial Stadium will look like this fall, upgrading the field from this. I have to say, I love it. Let’s review the features that I think make this one of the best looking fields in college football for the 2013 season. … Continue Reading

Arizona shows off new football uniforms for 2013

May 7, 2013 Featured, Uniforms No Comments

The Arizona Wildcats will have quite the wardrobe this 2013 season. If you have been paying attention to Arizona over the past year, you will recognize all of the new looks, for better or worse. The all-red look returns in 2013 with a red jersey-pants-helmet combo and the copper-colored helmet also makes a return for the upcoming season.

If you remember, I loved the addition of the copper helmet, a tribute to the copper tradition in the state. While the history and tradition angle was nice, they looked sharp. I think the same when I see it now, paired with the blue home uniform.

I was not as keen on the all-red look from the start, but I have grown on the red helmet slightly. It’s Arizona’s fourth best helmet (white, copper, blue, red) in my opinion, so hopefully we do not see it all too often in the fall. I still prefer the white helmet for regular use but the bue helmet looks great with Arizona’s red jersey and blue pants combo.

One new feature of the uniforms is the coloring of the numbers and sleeves, which fade from blue to red, Arizona’s colors.

“The updated jerseys feature ombre jersey numbers in the school’s traditional Cardinal, Navy and White. Nike has produced jerseys and pants in all three of those colors to suit various uniform combinations, complemented by Cardinal, Navy, White and Copper helmets,” an Arizona release says.

Honestly, I kind of like it and I think it works on all three jerseys. Have a look and see what you think.

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Images and video via Arizona Athletics.

An ACC-Big Ten Challenge in the Pinstripe Bowl? Sign me up!

May 2, 2013 Column, Featured No Comments

Yankee Stadium should be a destination for the ACC and Big Ten. Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

The College Football Playoff is just around the corner and conferences from coast to coast are working to find strategies to bolster schedule strength and conference profile. Other than moving to nine-game conference schedules, conferences are looking to lock in future bowl partners. It is the closest we may get to free agency for conferences now that realignment seems to have been put on ice, unless we want to dive in to recruiting.

The Big Ten is among those conferences looking to secure future bowl partnerships to compliment deals in place with the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl. While some may feel the game is worthless, the Pinstripe Bowl should now be a destination for the Big Ten and ACC every postseason.

The Pinstripe Bowl, played in not-so-historic Yankee Stadium, looks like an obvious choice for the Big Ten. It is played in cold weather, which the Big Ten should embrace. It is played in the New York market, which is certainly a factor with the addition of Rutgers in 2014. And it is played in Yankee Stadium, the symbol of royalty in baseball and the sporting world. Yankee Stadium is everything the Big Ten represents: Bigger is better, and richer.

Fortunately, it appears as though this bowl is gaining momentum to join the Big Ten line-up. But which conference will line up on the other side of the field on an annual basis? The Big 12 and the Big East have participated in the past three Pinstripe Bowls, with the Big East owning a possibly surprising 3-0 record. This may lead the Big 12 to get out of sending one of their teams in to the cold of the Bronx every December and maybe look for another bowl tie-in a little closer to home. Hey, trips to New York are nice but at what expense? Three straight losses to the conference that has been picked apart by national pundits on an annual basis for years as conference realignment tears it from limb to limb?

Speaking of which, would the Pinstripe Bowl have much interest in continuing their relationship with the Big East as they switch conference identity to The American. The American is losing Syracuse and Pittsburgh this season to the ACC, and Louisville will join them in 2014. Rutgers is joining the Big Ten at the same time. The American will be bringing in some new blood over the next couple of years to replace those departing members, but it will take time to rebuild any sense of a national brand the conference once had. I would suspect the Pinstripe Bowl will replace The American first, and the Big Ten should be at the top of the list.

If the Big 12 remains on the line-up, that would be fine. In fact, the Big 12 would probably be more inclined to stay on board with the Pinstripe Bowl if the Big Ten did replace The American. I am just going to guess the Big 12 will leave their spot vacant.

This is where the ACC needs to jump in. … Continue Reading

ACC thinking about a football Euro Trip

April 29, 2013 Featured, News No Comments

ACC EuroTrip

It is called the Atlantic Coast Conference for a reason. The ACC may be putting together a plan to cover both sides of the Atlantic Ocean if recent comments by the commissioner are any indication.

ACC commissioner John Swofford says playing football and basketball games in Europe is a realistic possibility in the future for the conference. Having recently established an extra level of stability with a new grant of rights package in place and no longer considered a target for future conference expansion options from rival conferences, the ACC is now in position to try and make a splash with their membership as the age of the four-team playoff dawns near.

“We need to think big,” Swofford said in an interview with CBSSports.com. “One of the things we brought up to our schools last week was we may play football, we may play basketball in Europe. Across the pond, so to speak.”

Before anyone goes nuts over the idea, keep in mind this is just an idea on the table. It is a complex idea to ship ACC football to Europe, and a costly one at that.