Illinois Football Uniforms

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#1      

Dan

Dan
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Dan
Welcome to the Illinois Football Uniforms thread :illinois:
 
#3      
Fighter of the Nightman
ugottabjoshinme said:
I've been strongly against the slant Illinois helmet all year, but have to admit it has definitely grown on me as the season has gone on.
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I would agree. I'm far from a brand expert, but this is my casual/subconscious perception of how college sports branding/marketing/uniforms have gone during my adult fan life:

1. A weird "tweener" period that was philosophically stuck between the more gaudy, classic (and delightfully overdone) logos of the early to mid-1990s and the newer trends of ~2007 and on. Think our glory days of basketball and that hilarious logo we had of blue slant ILLINOIS literally just over a basketball, lol.
2. This weird identity crisis era where it seemed like teams were just trying random shlt. Think the bizarre fad of basketball jerseys being skin tight and tiny while the shorts were baggy as hell and looked like a dress or every team wanting a gray uniform all of a sudden. This was also the era where like a hundred Nike schools seemed to have versions of our Zook Era football uniforms, which to me epitomize that late 2000s/early 2010s attempt at "trendy" with those curvy striping patterns.
3. An overcorrection toward minimalism and simplicity that produced a ton of boring uniforms. Our Lovie Era football uniforms are a perfect example of how "simple" combined with a look that isn't traditional just looks plain, cheap and boring. JMO, of course.

And I feel like now we have entered a rebirth of retro. And I am here for it. Block lettering, more traditional striping patterns, script font, etc. Somehow as enough time has passed, slant ILLINOIS (especially without the navy outline, I cannot stress that enough when it comes to my personal taste here...) has graduated from that #1 category to a much more "classic" vibe ... which makes sense, as we utilized it over a VERY wide range of 1989 to 2005. As I alluded to with the navy outline, it is no coincidence that it got less classic as it approached that #1 and #2 era listed above.

TL;DR

I have grown to like it, too, but only EVER used on a football helmet. On the helmet, it now is old enough that it can be seen as a "classic Illini" look to many. I don't love the slant ILLINOIS gear that the coaches wear, and it would be a H-U-G-E mistake to ever put it back over the Block I (and I will die on that hill for sure). However, it has certainly grown on me for the helmet. With that said, all of this switching around with helmets has made me realize that I honestly have no problem with our default helmet, either, though!
 
#4      
Fighter of the Nightman
--- Warning ... uniform nerding out incoming, lol! ---

With several regular seasons now under our belt in the Bielema Era, here are the uniform combos we have busted since Bret started here. I have no idea how we pick uniforms each game and I assume the captains have a say, but I also feel like any pattern we notice probably speaks to Bret's preferences here, as he is the constant across all seasons. Other than a few exceptions, it appears clear that he loves the O/B/O and had a spell of really liking O/W/W (which I view as our weakest look by far) on the road until Oregon apparently smacked that delusion out of him, haha.

2021 (Lovie Era uniforms but introduced a new helmet that had a W/B/W stripe instead of no stripe)
O/B/O vs. Nebraska
O/B/O vs. UTSA
O/W/W at Virginia
O/B/O vs. Maryland
O/W/O at Purdue
O/B/O vs. Charlotte
O/B/B vs. Wisconsin
O/W/O at #7 Penn State
O/B/O vs. Rutgers
O/W/O at #20 Minnesota
O/W/O at #17 Iowa
O/B/W vs. Northwestern

2022 (same uniforms as 2021)
O/B/O vs. Wyoming
O/W/O at Indiana
O/B/O vs. Virginia
O/B/O vs. Chattanooga
O/W/W at Wisconsin
O/B/O vs. Iowa
O/B/O vs. Minnesota
O/W/W at Nebraska
O/B/O vs. Michigan State
O/B/O vs. Purdue
O/W/W at #3 Michigan
O/B/O at Northwestern
O/W/W vs. #22 Mississippi State (ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, FL)

2023 (first year of current uniforms)
O/B/O vs. Toledo
O/W/W at Kansas
O/B/O vs. #7 Penn State
O/B/B vs. FAU
O/W/W at Purdue
O/B/B vs. Nebraska
O/W/W at Maryland
O/B/O vs. Wisconsin
O/W/W at Minnesota
O/O/O vs. Indiana (first time seeing the new orange uniforms)
O/W/W at #16 Iowa
O/B/O vs. Northwestern

2024
O/B/O vs. Eastern Illinois
O/O/O vs. #19 Kansas (with slant ILLINOIS helmets)
O/B/O vs. Central Michigan (with arched ILLINI helmets)
O/W/O at #22 Nebraska (with slant ILLINOIS helmets)
O/W/O at #9 Penn State (with slant ILLINOIS helmets)
O/B/B vs. Purdue (with Butkus Era helmets)
Grange Era Throwbacks vs. #24 Michigan (with Grange Era helmets)
O/W/W at #1 Oregon
O/O/O vs. Minnesota (with slant ILLINOIS helmets that had a military appreciation twist)
O/B/O vs. Michigan State
O/W/O at Rutgers (with slant ILLINOIS helmets)
O/W/O vs. Northwestern (Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL - with ivy-themed helmets)

And the final helmet tally for this regular season:
- 5 for slant ILLINOIS (including the slight variation for Minnesota)
- 3 for regular Block I
- 1 for ivy-themed Block I
- 1 for Butkus Era
- 1 for arched ILLINI
- 1 for Grange Era

It's kind of random, of course, but it is interesting that you can definitely pick up on SOME assumed superstition, haha. For example, it appears that after losing on the road at Indiana in 2022, we ditched the orange pants and went with white pants on the road for almost the entire season. I would also bet that we might not see O/B/B for a while (even though I think it looks aesthetically good), as it has had some bizarre luck:
1. Embarrassing 24-0 Homecoming loss vs. Wisconsin in 2021
2. Alarming scare vs. FAU in 2023 (W 23-17)
3. Absolute dud of a performance vs. Nebraska the very next week in 2023 (L 7-20)
4. Practically unbelievable second half collapse vs. Purdue in 2024 that somehow ended in a win

One interesting note is that even though we have worn slant ILLINOIS for nearly half of our games this year, we actually have never worn it with our standard O/B/O look ... which I find interesting. My guess is that if we get to choose our color for a bowl game, we will go O/B/O with slant ILLINOIS or O/W/O with slant ILLINOIS. Of course, I hold out hope that we bust out O/W/B with arched ILLINI, haha.

P.S. This one vs. Northwestern in 2021 really stands out ... we have not worn white pants at home before or after that game:

big_UI_Northwestern_FB_Pessman__428-900x599.jpg
 
#5      
Toews
If it's the Citrus, which I'm almost positive it will be, I think we would be the home team. However, we were the home team for the Reliaquest bowl and chose to wear the o/w/w look (which I think that team really loved). I wouldn't be surprised to see us in any of the uniforms though since I feel like the Bowl uniforms are a little more random.
 
#6      
Fighter of the Nightman
Toews said:
If it's the Citrus, which I'm almost positive it will be, I think we would be the home team. However, we were the home team for the Reliaquest bowl and chose to wear the o/w/w look (which I think that team really loved). I wouldn't be surprised to see us in any of the uniforms though since I feel like the Bowl uniforms are a little more random.
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I've said this before, but I think it would be cool if we had a look reserved ONLY for bowl games ... it would be a bit of a cool tradition that the kids could look forward to achieving the very opportunity to wear that combo. If this sounds weird, here is my example.

Obviously, high school sports teams don't have the flashiest uniforms. However, I think my high school baseball team had a cool program tradition ... at least it felt cool for us. We had these two uniforms:

1) Actual "real" home uniform with a white vest jersey, green undershirt and white pants with green piping/trim. Uniforms have come a long way, but at that time ... an actually customized pant with piping was cool as hell for us. :ROFLMAO:
2) Green road jersey but you had to buy/supply your own gray pants, lol. So a much less cool look.

However, for the state tournament we wore our away green jerseys with the cool white home pants that had the matching green piping/trim. That combo was only reserved for teams that had the honor of making it to the state tournament. Kind of silly, sure, but many traditions like that are. As much as I loved the orange look under the lights vs. KU, it would be cool if, say, we only ever wore orange to our bowl games since it would likely be fine to wear in most scenarios with the other team's jerseys. Just kind of spitballing here.
 
#11      
Fighter of the Nightman
CaptainCrutch said:
View attachment 37778

For the bowl please!
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While there are some things I like here better than our current uniforms (e.g., block lettering instead of our lame number font we are intent on using...), there are two big things I like way better about our current set:

1) No neck collar ... I have come to think football uniforms just simply do not need these, and they always look like overkill.
2) The orange outline on the white number really makes the jersey look more complete.
 
#12      
OrangeBlue98
Last year, the SEC team (Tennessee) was the home team. So I think the Big Ten team would be the home team and get first crack at uniforms.

Obviously, if it's Alabama their color choices are pretty obvious - C/W/W if we wear colored and C/C/W if we wear white.

South Carolina could be fun. It seems like they mix and match quite a bit - maybe even more than us because they have different colors of helmets.

If it's South Carolina, I'd love to see us go either all-orange or O/O/W (which we haven't done this season) and see South Carolina go some sort of combination of garnet and black (no white). That could be an awesome color contrast for a bowl game.
 
#13      
Thaillini22
Say what you will about the slant on the helmet, but another problem for me is it's hard to do cool fan gear with it.

It looks cr*p on a hat, kinda cr*p on shirts, can't really put it anywhere other than low front on shorts, it kinda stinks everywhere else other than the helmet imo.
 
#14      
the juiceman cometh
Thaillini22 said:
Say what you will about the slant on the helmet, but another problem for me is it's hard to do cool fan gear with it.

It looks cr*p on a hat, kinda cr*p on shirts, can't really put it anywhere other than low front on shorts, it kinda stinks everywhere else other than the helmet imo.
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Why is this a problem? Tons of helmets that are not the basis for merch. Michigan, Penn St., Alabama. Plus, I kinda think it looks decent when done right.

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#16      
Toews
My guess is we actually wear the orange uniforms with the slant Illinois for the bowl. Feels like orange is a citrus bowl-y uniform and it’s more of a fun than serious game.
 
#17      
BatteredWifeSchwartz
GrayGhost77 said:
I was REALLY hoping we would bust out the arched Illini helmet again after the CMU game, but alas, twas not to be. I honestly think it's our best helmet design.
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I was a big fan of those helmets and was also hoping to see them again. I like slant quite a bit and also understand it's popularity, but I think the main reason it stuck around was the "mojo" around it. We beat Kansas with it, then decided to keep it for Nebraska. I'm sure there was some superstition into keeping them for Penn State.
 
#22      
Fighter of the Nightman
Random thought for this thread ... has anyone else noticed how many times we've had social media posts where recruits have our current white uniform but then a white helmet? Are those just leftovers from the Lovie Era uniforms...? I hope we never wear a white helmet, but if we do, it should at least have a B/O/B stripe down the middle to match the orange design.
 
#23      
Fighter of the Nightman
Okay, I finally got a PS5 for my birthday and played the EA College Football game yesterday, and I have to say ... both O/W/B and O/O/W look absolutely fantastic. The white pants we have with this set (i.e., with a B/O/B stripe) just look REALLY clean with our orange jerseys.
 
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