NU Confirms New Football Unis and Fitz TV Show

NU could once again wear black pants with purple tops in home games.

Big news from NU today was the confirmation of new football uniforms for Northwestern which bring back the Northwestern striping along with the return of black pants which didn’t go so well last time they were worn by NU, but actually were NU’s standard road attire in the 2000 season and that means they were in fashion for the 47-44 OT win in Madison and the “Victory Right” game against Minnesota. Therefore, I think the black pants have taken something of a bad rap due to their most recent appearances. I also think bringing some black back into the uniform isn’t a bad idea. Much of the NU products available feature black as does much of the NU coaches’ gear, so I’m not surprised to see it added to the football uniform.

Now the bigger news from the perspective of basketball is the news Pat Fitzgerald will have a half hour TV program on each week. Back in NU’s Big Ten Title winning seasons of 1995, 1996, and 2000 Gary Barnett and Randy Walker had television programs as did hoops coaches Ricky Byrdsong and Kevin O’Neill. I have no idea if a Fitz show means a Bill Carmody show, but Fitz having a show at least makes it somewhat more likely Carmody could have one in the future if not this season. Honestly, I think Bill Carmody would probably be the prefect coach for a TV show because I have a feeling his show would be very different from other coaches’ TV shows. Most of these coach shows are highlights and positive vibes and basically total spin. Basically totally boring to watch, but as a fan you still watch anyway. I have a feeling Bill Carmody taking his “tell it like it is” approach on to TV would offer a different kind of show. A more interesting show. Carmody has never been one to spin a loss or sugarcoat bad play and I really respect him for that. The man is brutally honest even when it sometimes gets fans upset with him. Look at the firestorm on the message boards whenever he admits he’s not sure about something. The truth is every coach isn’t sure about things at times, but no one else is honest enough to say so.

Carmody’s also very funny with a very quick wit and would no doubt be entertaining to watch. In fact, I think Carmody’s wit would appeal strongly to the type of player NU wants to recruit. With NU recruiting smart kids, they should be the types that can see that most coaches’ shows are just infomercials for a team. Basically, a political ad with basketball highlights. I think a Bill Carmody’s honesty and frankness would standout to the type of recruits NU wants as an appealing characteristic for a potential head coach. Now, will NU give Carmody a show? I have no idea. But the other Big Ten basketball coaches have them and with NU putting together a production team for a show for Fitz, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t use that same team to produce a show for Carmody.

Black Pants Curse? (I hope not, they look sharp)

Will the Wildcats have new football uniform which looks something like this?

If you’re a member of Northwestern fandom you’ve likely visited Hail to Purple, Spread Far the Fame, or the Wildcat Report message boards recently enough to know insiders say Northwestern has new football uniforms in the works. Those of you who read this blog regularly know I devoted a ton of space over the past summer to NU uniforms of all sports because, to be honest, I’m a fan of uniform history and, specifically, NU’s classic black uniform top. Now, the new rumored jersey does not feature a black top, but supposedly, at least as an option, has black pants. Therefore the basic outline of the jersey would look like the picture above, but the top would be more traditional. It would have block numbers and the Northwestern Stripes would return for the first time since 1996. That’s a good omen, I think.

What might be less of a good omen, what scares the superstitious fan in me, is the decision to potentially go to black pants. Now, I do think the purple jersey black pants look is actually pretty sharp. TCU uses it and I’m a fan of their play and their look. However, Northwestern’s recent history with black pants isn’t good. The black pants went out of the regular rotation at the end of the 2002 season. The same year NU’s black jerseys went out of the regular rotation. After the disaster that was 2002 it made sense for Randy Walker and the ‘Cats to want to try something different. What Coach Walk and the ‘Cats settled on was a purple jersey with purple pants combo for home games and a white jersey with white pants combo for road games. NU has worn the white jersey white pants combo on the road for every road game since the start of 2003 except for one game in 2004 at Minnesota. In that game the Wildcats wore black pants. The result involved Minnesota putting a whooping on the ‘Cats 43-17. The greatest indignity was Gopher Head Coach Glen Mason calling a halfback pass for a TD late in the 4th quarter. It makes me want throw rocks at my TV every time I see him smiling smugly on the Big Ten Network. The Wildcats haven’t worn black pants on the road since.

After the 2006 season NU ditched the all purple look to go with purple jerseys and white pants at home. I do like this look, but I don’t mind the visual of a purple jersey with black pants either. What I mind, however, is the results to the two times NU has tried this. In 2006 Northwestern hosted Ohio State. With NU out of bowl contention it was the Wildcats bowl game. Early in the week at a get together with fans at the Blue Stone Coach Fitz hinted the team would have a “new look”, Fitz didn’t say what the look would be, but it sounded like NU would wear new uniforms. In fact, NU wore old uniform pants. The Wildcats wore the 2000-2002 black pants with their regular purple tops. The uniforms looked good, but the players in them did not. Ohio State pounded NU 54-10.

The greatest disaster of the black pants era is perhaps the blackest day of all in the history of NU football, and that’s saying something. In 2007 the Wildcats hosted Duke at night in Evanston. Going for a different look for the season’s only night contest the Wildcats walked out of the tunnel with the same combo as the pervious year’s Ohio State game. Duke had lost 22 straight games at the time, but they didn’t lose that night. When CJ Bacher’s last pass fell in complete on 4th and goal, the Wildcats fell to 0-3 since 2002 in black pants.

Now, does this recent history of failure in black pants mean anything? No. NU actually beat Wisconsin and Minnesota in two outstanding games while wearing black pants in 2000. Also, while those black pants were the same design as what NU wore in the games mentioned above, next year’s well be different, perhaps with a purple stripe. Regardless of uniforms, I’m sure NU will be successful next year as I like where Coach Fitz has the program. If he asked my thoughts on the uniforms, I’d say if the players like the purple top with black pants idea, then I can get behind it. Personally, though, if NU is going back to black, I’d say lets go back to the black tops we wore when winning 3 Big Ten Titles in just 6 years.*



* For the record one rumor has NU getting black tops for a special occasion game. Perhaps a game at Wrigley Field in 2011 vs Michigan.

Uniform Poll Result Analysis

It might be a little silly to devote time to analyzing a poll about what uniforms fans prefer a college football team to wear, but as I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the subject, I think it’s worth devoting just a little more. It should probably be noted that this poll might be somewhat lacking in validity thanks to the fact I only got 26 responses. Obviously, this is just a fraction of the NU fan base. Nonetheless, I think the results say something very interesting. Northwestern fans have debated the football uniform issue since 2003 when NU changed from the Gary Barnett era black uniforms to the school color purple uniforms they now wear. To be honest, I thought the majority of fans still longed for the black jerseys as they represent multiple Big Ten Titles to those who cheered the ‘Cats in the mid-90s and 2000. However, as I spoke to people who attended NU in recent years, I realized they either have no recollection of the black jerseys or associate them with poor years in 2001 and 2002. To those who recently became NU fans, it probably seems odd to think of NU buying into the black uniform fad which took place in the 1990s. Personally, I don’t know if NU really bought into the fad. Gary Barnett credited his son, Clay, with the uniform design, and they were very similar to the uniforms worn by Barnett’s pervious employer, the University of Colorado.

I don’t really know what prompted the change in uniform color before the 2003 season. I know Randy Walker did mention at times that purple was the school color and he thought the uniform should represent that color. Pat Fitzgerald has said similar things in recent years as well. Some might disagree, but the fan vote is almost evenly split. Seeing that almost even split has moved me somewhat more strongly into the purple uniform camp. I would like to see NU wear the black Rose Bowl-style uniforms for a throwback day once a year, but I’m starting to see why people like the new purple jerseys. The newer jerseys clearly represent the school as they are the school color, they have very clear numbers (which hasn’t always been the case at NU), and NU has been to 4 bowl games (including the 1948 Rose Bowl) when wearing purple home jerseys. If NU is to continue wearing purple, though, I would like to see the Northwestern strips replace the USC-style shoulder strips and I really hope Coach Fitz sticks with the white pants at home. I really didn’t like the all-purple look.

One More NU Football Jersey

In the last edition of our series on Northwestern’s jerseys (at least for now) we look at NU’s road football jerseys. Also, in order to get a sense of the NU community as a whole, I’ve posted a poll on the topic of favorite NU football jersey. I invite all readers to register their vote. The reason the road jersey is last on this topic is because the basic outline of that uniform really hasn’t changed much over the years. The uniform above is a 1992-94 road jersey, but even with the changes since then the basic outline of a white uniform with purple numbers hasn’t changed. In fact, according to the history section on Hail to Purple NU wore a similar white jersey even in 1935. The 1995-97 versions of this jersey had an N-Cat logo similar to that on the Rose Bowl jersey featured yesterday. The 92-96 versions all had Northwestern striping as you can see above in the 92-94 version. Starting in 1997 the Northwestern stripping disappeared. From 1998-2002 the strips were Adidas strips. Since 2003 NU has worn a USC style single strip. NU has also changed road pants with at various times purple, black, and white pants being used on the road. Overall I like the look of NU’s white jersey. Perhaps that’s why it has stayed similar in design over the years.

More Uniform Talk: Rose Bowl Black

The old uniforms shown last week brought in several e-mail comments form readers. Clearly uniforms are a topic which many NU fans hold very strong feelings about. I think is likely due to the fact that Northwestern has worn such a wide variety of uniforms over the years. Today we return to the subject of Northwestern uniforms by focusing on the uniform worn during Northwestern’s historic Rose Bowl appearance on January 1, 1996. With the exception of the even patches, this uniform is almost identical to the uniforms worn during the 1997 Citrus Bowl and the 1997 regular season. The uniforms worn during the 1995 and 1996 regular seasons are also very similar to this design, except they featured the famous Northwestern strips on the sleeve below the N-Cat logo. I believe in the case of the Rose Bowl they were omitted due to the fact NU needed to wear two different event patches. In 1997, starting with the January 1 Citrus Bowl, NU switched uniform makers to Reebok and then Adidas, NU has not worn the Northwestern strip design since this change. The Rose Bowl jersey was manufactured by Russell Athletic. Of note the jerseys worn in 95-96 was the fact NU went to a solid white number. This was a change from first purple numbers (which were hard to see on black jerseys) and then a white number with a pruple outline. NU has used the white number with purple outline in the black jerseys from Adidas.

One of the features of the jerseys from 95-97 that I really liked was this N-Cat logo on the shoulder. I know some traditionalists object to the cat head being purple, but I think the logo looks great and most importantly, is clearly visible. This is far better than the small logo now on the sleeves of the new jerseys which is almost impossible to see. Also, I still think the NU strips should be on the sleeves.

Northwestern wore this patch during the 1996 Rose Bowl game. For some reason, USC did not.

NU also wore this patch. It is interesting to note that the Rose Bowl did not at the time have a cooperate sponsor. Even now the Rose Bowl handles sponsorship differently with the game being referred to as, “The Rose Bowl presented by AT&T” and not “The AT&T Rose Bowl” which is the form other bowl names take.

If NU does choose to wear black for a game in the future, I'd like to see them replicate the 95-96 regular season jerseys which would look almost like this, but have the N-Cat in place of the event patches and the NU strips on the sleeves.

News and Notes:

Kyle Rowley will play for the senior national team of his native Trinidad and Tobago. You can debate the level of talent in Trinidad and Tobago all you want, but I don't see how this can be anything but great for Rowley's development. While most college players can play pick up and college summer leagues with no coaches, I really think I guy like Rowley who doesn’t have a full lifetime of basketball experience will be helped by playing in an organized tournament with professional coaches.

Team USA's U-19 team won again in New Zealand, but the early report doesn't have any stats for John Shurna.