Illinois Football Uniforms

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#151      
BZuppke
Giving up the (gray) ghost uniform I think is a big mistake. It’s a cool tradition honoring a man whom ESPN designated as the greatest college football player of all time with a great tie into our history. Reminds the college football world that we have a great tradition despite our recent woes. Everyone knows we’re orange and blue. Small minded thinking that somehow this cool homecoming tradition takes away from that.
 
#152      
the juiceman cometh
BZuppke said:
Giving up the (gray) ghost uniform I think is a big mistake. It’s a cool tradition honoring a man whom ESPN designated as the greatest college football player of all time with a great tie into our history. Reminds the college football world that we have a great tradition despite our recent woes. Everyone knows we’re orange and blue. Small minded thinking that somehow this cool homecoming tradition takes away from that.
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If the goal is to honor Grange, why do it with some bland grey jersey that honestly has nothing to do with the guy and needs to be explained every year to the casual fan? I would suggest doing so by finding a way to make a modern interpretation of the jersey he actually wore when he played for us (see below). Or have special helmets with the number 77 on one side.

1633758515592.png
 
#153      
illiniguy
the juiceman cometh said:
If the goal is to honor Grange, why do it with some bland grey jersey that honestly has nothing to do with the guy and needs to be explained every year to the casual fan? I would suggest doing so by finding a way to make a modern interpretation of the jersey he actually wore when he played for us (see below). Or have special helmets with the number 77 on one side.

View attachment 12483
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Here he is in color:
redgrange.jpg
 
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#155      
ILL_INI
illiniguy said:
Here he is in color:
View attachment 12484
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Not only is it colorized, but that's a Chicago Bears uniform, not Illinois.
the juiceman cometh said:
If the goal is to honor Grange, why do it with some bland grey jersey that honestly has nothing to do with the guy and needs to be explained every year to the casual fan? I would suggest doing so by finding a way to make a modern interpretation of the jersey he actually wore when he played for us (see below). Or have special helmets with the number 77 on one side.

View attachment 12483
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I would argue that the Gray Ghost uniforms are a modern take on this design. They are sleek and the players and recruits love them. What's wrong with educating people about Illinois's proud history every year? An Illinois journalist on his podcast embarrassingly said he didn't get the gray, as if he never heard of Grantland Rice. Why did he write gray ghost instead of blue ghost? I have no idea, but he's more famous than any of us.
 
#156      
the juiceman cometh
ILL_INI said:
Not only is it colorized, but that's a Chicago Bears uniform, not Illinois.

I would argue that the Gray Ghost uniforms are a modern take on this design. They are sleek and the players and recruits love them. What's wrong with educating people about Illinois's proud history every year? An Illinois journalist on his podcast embarrassingly said he didn't get the gray, as if he never heard of Grantland Rice. Why did he write gray ghost instead of blue ghost? I have no idea, but he's more famous than any of us.
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This:

1633789213719.png


Looks nothing like this:

1633789177592.png


And if you google "grey college football uniforms" you'll see that a bunch of other teams have used the same exact grey for alternate unis. I almost wonder if Nike just had a bunch of extra material lying around and pitched us on this.
 
#157      
dbeaverfg
the juiceman cometh said:
This:

View attachment 12488

Looks nothing like this:

View attachment 12487

And if you google "grey college football uniforms" you'll see that a bunch of other teams have used the same exact grey for alternate unis. I almost wonder if Nike just had a bunch of extra material lying around and pitched us on this.
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I think you cal bet that Nike pawned this off on us and any number of other schools. Anything we do to honor Red Grange that isn't what Nike wants will have to be initiated from our DIA and bypass Nike if need be.
 
#158      
ILL_INI
the juiceman cometh said:
This:

View attachment 12488

Looks nothing like this:

View attachment 12487

And if you google "grey college football uniforms" you'll see that a bunch of other teams have used the same exact grey for alternate unis. I almost wonder if Nike just had a bunch of extra material lying around and pitched us on this.
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I admit that the newer version appears to have removed the subtle stripes on the front, unless it's even more subtle haha.
 
#159      
ChiefGritty
ILL_INI said:
the players and recruits love them.
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This is always the catch-all justification for anything novel in uniforms, but I don't think I've ever seen a recruit pose for pictures on a visit in the grays, nor do I recall our players every really using the grays in their profile pictures on twitter or whatnot.

The whole uni swag fire emoji thing of a decade ago is now basically solely the province of 30-something equipment managers and sports information directors. It's over.
 
#161      
DReq
mattcoldagelli said:
You know what everybody - from visiting recruits to lame message board dads - loves? The script Illinois. It's time.

(This is half-jokingly beating the drum on this idea, but again, I honestly can't believe what a great look we stumbled into almost on a whim)
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I kinda think I heard that drum whinny some time back...
 
#163      
the national
Eh, it’s a conjured up concept to become self important. We haven’t really won with the greys. The connection feels post rationalized. Don’t get me wrong, I love our history, Red Grange and the Galloping Ghost…. However, the greys are not like the black shirts at Neb that have a long standing tradition - some meaning. In our case, we just jumped on a bandwagon, full stop.

My feelings on the greys are mostly apathy and wishful thinking that we’d come up with something better.

I like the script idea though.
 
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#164      
BZuppke
Actually I do believe they were conjured up during the uniform craze of the era. How did Notre Dame’s green jerseys first appear? Conjured up by someone. Despite that they had a real tie to our history and traditions. Bringing them out only on Homecoming made them special. It was good for people to ask ‘who’s that team in the gray?’ And we did have some special wins in them notably the Wisconsin game, but also a surprise win over Minnesota a few years before.

No one will forget we’re orange and blue if we wear the grays once a year
 
#166      
ILL_INI
the juiceman cometh said:
This:

View attachment 12488

Looks nothing like this:

View attachment 12487

And if you google "grey college football uniforms" you'll see that a bunch of other teams have used the same exact grey for alternate unis. I almost wonder if Nike just had a bunch of extra material lying around and pitched us on this.
Click to expand...
I finally did, in fact, perform the google search and none of the other gray uniforms had vertical stripes as seen on the Gray Ghost uniforms, so I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about. I mean, I could also perform a search for orange and blue uniforms and find enough similar uniforms to claim that it looks like Nike used the same material for the standard uniforms if I use a similar criteria that you used.

I did like the subtle wide stripes that they had on the original Gray Ghost uniforms, but this is still a unique look with thinner vertical stripes having an angled top and squared base, reminiscent of the Red Grange uniform.
 
#167      
Homecoming 2019
the national said:
Eh, it’s a conjured up concept to become self important. We haven’t really won with the greys. The connection feels post rationalized. Don’t get me wrong, I love our history, Red Grange and the Galloping Ghost…. However, the greys are not like the black shirts at Neb that have a long standing tradition - some meaning. In our case, we just jumped on a bandwagon, full stop.

My feelings on the greys are mostly apathy and wishful thinking that we’d come up with something better.

I like the script idea though.
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Gonna need a mock-up of a football jersey with Illinois script stat so I know how to feel. And now I'm realizing that no college team puts their school name or mascot on their jersey like they do in bball and it's kind of blowing my mind.
 
#168      
Ransom Stoddard
Homecoming 2019 said:
Gonna need a mock-up of a football jersey with Illinois script stat so I know how to feel. And now I'm realizing that no college team puts their school name or mascot on their jersey like they do in bball and it's kind of blowing my mind.
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How could you forget this? o_O
1634158240745.png


Mascots still show up here and there, but usually at the neck where we used to have the shield, and a few schools do still put the school name or nickname in small text above the numbers. I saw a "Mizzou" somewhere this season or last.
 
#169      
Homecoming 2019
Ransom Stoddard said:
How could you forget this? o_O
View attachment 12530

Mascots still show up here and there, but usually at the neck where we used to have the shield, and a few schools do still put the school name or nickname in small text above the numbers. I saw a "Mizzou" somewhere this season or last.
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Yeah I've seen the small text above the numbers, was thinking more similar to basketball, but it's probably a rule in football in regards to number sizing on a jersey.
 
#170      
KevinC
Homecoming 2019 said:
Gonna need a mock-up of a football jersey with Illinois script stat so I know how to feel. And now I'm realizing that no college team puts their school name or mascot on their jersey like they do in bball and it's kind of blowing my mind.
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Check out the Michigan State football jerseys.
 
#171      
the juiceman cometh
ILL_INI said:
I finally did, in fact, perform the google search and none of the other gray uniforms had vertical stripes as seen on the Gray Ghost uniforms, so I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about. I mean, I could also perform a search for orange and blue uniforms and find enough similar uniforms to claim that it looks like Nike used the same material for the standard uniforms if I use a similar criteria that you used.

I did like the subtle wide stripes that they had on the original Gray Ghost uniforms, but this is still a unique look with thinner vertical stripes having an angled top and squared base, reminiscent of the Red Grange uniform.
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I was mostly joking about Nike. My point was that there is nothing special or unique about having a grey alternate uni. And some stripes you can't even pick up on tv 90% of the time don't really save it, in my opinion.
 
#172      
Nxstephe
The Illinois script helmet is a good idea to explore. Another is an arch Illini (a la Ohio). The blue I on the orange helmet is just not a great look and the stripe makes it look even worse. I like the orange helmet and white face mask but, if we’re going to go with that, need to adjust other aspects.
 
#173      
IlliniCaboose
The script is my #1 choice as well. But if we're going to go with any design that has the triple stripe can we please do blue/white/blue instead of the reverse that we currently have. I'm no design expert but seems to me having the darker color blue break up the two lighter colors, orange and white, looks far better than having the 2 lighter colors right next to each other.
 
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