Illinois Football Uniforms

Conceptually, I prefer stripe to no stripe, so feels like a slight improvement given that we likely don’t have a ton of wiggle room until we actually do a uniform refresh.

It’s a lot of white for a Jersey/pant combo that has none, but that can be alleviated a bit through shoes/socks/gloves/sleeves.

Amazing- still haven't found someone who can apply the decals at the correct angle!

I don't understand why you can't put a unstickered helmet on a player, put the sticker on so that it doesn't look like it's being abducted by aliens, and then use that as a template for every other helmet.

mattcoldagelli said:

Conceptually, I prefer stripe to no stripe, so feels like a slight improvement given that we likely don’t have a ton of wiggle room until we actually do a uniform refresh.

It’s a lot of white for a Jersey/pant combo that has none, but that can be alleviated a bit through shoes/socks/gloves/sleeves.

Click to expand...

Kinda going off what you’re saying I think white pants would be better for this helmet jersey look.

Tape is cheap.

Although I will say, the white outline on the helmet looks nice.

Pikeillinifan said:

I think they look pretty good, and I may be mistaken but it looks like the “I” was applied properly - I’ll be shocked if someone actually fixed that!

Huge improvement in my mind, perfect no, but looks pretty damn good.

Click to expand...

I agree. I guess I don't know how the "I" is supposed to be applied otherwise. Do people not realize that the angle of the head is going to throw off the angle of the "I"? By the way, you cannot blame the older worker who used to do it; he retired after last season.

I was spoiled by success, these are my faves

The Galloping Ghost said:

The helmet and jersey don't work together. You can't incorporate white into one and not the other. I get that Nike has a 4-year cycle with jerseys, but that means we should wait to change the helmets, so they're a unified set.

Click to expand...

totally correct. The stripe has to go on the pants and jersey too or else we have TJMaxx looking unis

illinoistradition said:

I agree. I guess I don't know how the "I" is supposed to be applied otherwise. Do people not realize that the angle of the head is going to throw off the angle of the "I"? By the way, you cannot blame the older worker who used to do it; he retired after last season.

Click to expand...

I've posted this video about this time every year for the last 4-5 years or more, so here we go again.


At the height of my frustration some time ago, I also emailed it to Whitman and the entire equipment staff. It's not hard and there are programs that pay attention to detail, as should we.

The Galloping Ghost said:

The helmet and jersey don't work together. You can't incorporate white into one and not the other. I get that Nike has a 4-year cycle with jerseys, but that means we should wait to change the helmets, so they're a unified set.

Click to expand...

Agree, but the white socks, shoes, and gloves certainly help complete the temporary look.

Hawk19 said:

View attachment 12061
Agree, but the white socks, shoes, and gloves certainly help complete the temporary look.

Click to expand...

Agree, and to my mind the most important point is the helmet being replaced was so bad that I'd rather have this not-matching helmet replace it, even though it doesn't match, and even though I'm pretty meh on aspects of it. Just really really hope that going forward they apply the stripe more like the one on the right, rather than the one on the left. And when the jerseys get changed, switch the blue and the white on the stripe so the white is the chunky middle part.

So many thoughts

- It actually seems to me like they've gotten the I's straight here, am I crazy?

- The white facemasks look good. What will make them coalesce better is having a white chinstrap and white padding inside the helmet. Small details, but they matter

- So the stripe is clearly (to me) meant to mimic the color of the block I. Blue bordered by white. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the issue is that it's a rebrand fail, it's not the "columns" stripes which are on the basketball uniforms and are subtly patterned into the numbers on the jersey. Needs consistency one way or the other.

- Whatever stripe you have on the helmet, put it on the pants.

- Since these hearken back to 90's/00's era helmets, everyone will assume we'll have white numbers on the next jersey set as we did back then. NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND. Keeping with the Block I coloration aesthetic would point toward orange numbers, except with a white border a la the Tony Eason photo above. That would then be consistent with the helmet logo and striping and tie the whole thing together.

- Another little thing is that the block I on the collar should have a white border

- The next round of the Nike process is going to give us the opportunity to make really dramatic changes to the jerseys if we want to. I think we should consider not doing that. Matching the helmet and pants stripe to the sleeves might well be too same-y. One little thing I really liked in this set was not having a contrasting collar on the blues, that's overused I hope we stay away. Just add the border and let the rest of the stuff do the work.

- I don't currently have access to my computer for doing so (long story) but I should be able to mock up this stuff I'm talking about some time in the next few days

- I'm not crazy about the "FamILLy" nose bumper, but much better programs than ours do stuff like that these days, I can't accuse it of being Beckman-y too much.

- This is progress! We are doing less wrong here, and there is definitely a metaphor for the Bielema Era in that.

the juiceman cometh said:

Agree, and to my mind the most important point is the helmet being replaced was so bad that I'd rather have this not-matching helmet replace it, even though it doesn't match, and even though I'm pretty meh on aspects of it. Just really really hope that going forward they apply the stripe more like the one on the right, rather than the one on the left. And when the jerseys get changed, switch the blue and the white on the stripe so the white is the chunky middle part.

Click to expand...

I’m guessing the stripe sequence and the whole ‘honor the past’ thing is based on the Butkus-era helmet. And the white facemasks are probably meant to throwback to the slant ‘ILLINOIS’ days. Except I don’t think either one works that well with everything else. It worries me that we’re starting to creep down the road that led to the whole rebrand in the first place - slapping together a bunch of elements that don’t really fit and making new things up as we go.

I likey alot

I don’t spend much time thinking about the uniforms, so looks fine to me. Only thing I don’t particularly like is the Familly on the helmet. Maybe it is just me, but I don’t think the football helmets for an institution of higher learning should feature what is essentially a “typo” — no matter how clever they think it is.

Needs more otter, but it'll do for now.

I like it except they could have cut the stripe around the front vent on #2s helmet. The way it is it looks like some guy slapped on a sticker

It's the right direction at least.

Gritty nailed it. The "I" on the helmet is applied better. Stripe on the pants.

I hope some of you fashion designers realize that the helmets are different so the decals are going to look different. Players have preferences when it comes to helmet fit so they can't look identical. Who cares what they look like compared to what they play like. If at the end of the season we are still talking about uni's and helmets we'll be in big trouble. We could be Penn State and then have nothing to complain about...! I L L

I wish we would do something similar to Utah with the center stripe

CheifKeith91 said:

I wish we would do something similar to Utah with the center stripeView attachment 12065

Click to expand...

Too similar.

Update it's growing on me, I think it will be two years before a full new set with white on the jersey and pants. Also, just the sloppy way the decals look applied maybe made me dislike it at first.

Edit: It also will look much better with the white jerseys.

Yall love to complain about anything and everything lol. Important to remember they are working with what they got, the rebrand doesn't happen but every 4 years and I think this is year 3? BB is working hard with nike to push the reband next season.

illini0440 said:

Yall love to complain about anything and everything lol. Important to remember they are working with what they got, the rebrand doesn't happen but every 4 years and I think this is year 3? BB is working hard with nike to push the reband next season.

Click to expand...

This is year 4 fwiw.

14-15-16-17 was the initial Nike rebrand unis and 18-19-20-21 has been the updated versions.