Western Illinois...
... Northwestern
Cool idea, and thanks for posting! Having the visuals is really great. I'll try to figure out how to Frankenstein these images into my own picks on a different day, but my comments would be:
1. While I have come to appreciate the Slant
ILLINOIS helmet a bit more after last year (it had an especially good outing for the KU night game!), I still don't love it with our navy jerseys ... I just think it works better with white on the road. If there were ever a time to wear Slant
ILLINOIS with navy at home, I think it would be for a day where we are honoring the 2007 team (perhaps in 2027??) and we bust out an
O/B/W plus Slant
ILLINOIS combo to pay tribute to that era. In other words, for the "average"
O/B/O home games like Western Illinois, Western Michigan, Northwestern, etc., I would wear either Block I or Script helmets.
2. I pretty adamantly hate the white pants on the road look we have, so I have to disagree with your choices for Indiana and Wisconsin. However, I will add two caveats. Firstly, if we ARE ever going to wear "all white" on the road, it should be with a white helmet, like you have for the IU game. If people have an issue with the white helmet, then I think they should make peace with white pants on the road not being our thing ... I just think white jersey plus white pants plus NOT white helmet is an awful look in general for uniforms. Secondly, however, I will admit that the CLOSEST version of the latter look that might actually work is
O/W/W with the Arched ILLINI helmet, which you have for Wisconsin. I saw that in a recruit visit photo and was shocked how much better it worked than
O/W/W with our other helmets ... but I am still not sure it works for me. In general, we should always wear orange or navy pants with our white jersey.
3. While I L-O-V-E that you are a fellow member of Team #BPOTR and incorporated an
O/W/B combo, I like the idea of that being for "big road games" and thus would not use it for Purdue, necessarily. I think we should utilize the navy pants on the road especially often when the home team wears red to provide better contrast, so that would be my uniform pick for the Indiana and Wisconsin away games. I also think Arched ILLINI would easily look the best with this combo, and I am dying to see it.
4. While I will admit that I was really surprised by how good the all orange uniform looked with our current design, I still would prefer the
O/O/W combo ... so put me down as a fan of your look vs. Rutgers. I just feel like the
B/O/B stripe on our white pants really pops and would look great with that orange jersey.
5. I have no super strong feelings about the
O/B/B combo other than I think it looks really sharp. I would tend to favor it being used for night games at home, but obviously those don't pop up that often.
I’m just not a fan of white shirts and pants together. Never have been, particularly when our orange and blue colors are so good.
After seeing some of these photos, I really want to see blue pants with the white jersey and the arched Illini for the Indiana game. That just might be our new leader in the clubhouse for best uniform combination. Would love to actually see it on the field.
To your first point, I agree. Per my response above, I firmly believe that any "all-white" look has to be, ya know ... all white. There is no look in college football I hate more than when a team has a colored helmet with white pants and a white jersey ... it doesn't achieve the "all-white" look, and it just looks weird and bad. As for your second point, AGREED! I am dying to see that look, and the Indiana road game (what will likely be a hyped game vs. an opponent whose primary color is red) is the PERFECT opportunity.
Am I the only one who wants to see orange helmet, orange jersey, blue pants?
I mean, hey, I would be interested in seeing anything once ... but I think that is easily our most visually bizarre combo. When I think of classically good uniform combos, teams almost always have their pants as the lighter of their two primary colors and their jersey as the darker of their two primary colors (except, obviously, with the white jersey for away games). Flipping it just always looks a little weird to me. FWIW, I don't think our last debut of O/O/B looked very good, lol...
Obviously, to each his own! For me, the white pants with the orange jersey is just such a clean look that doesn't overdo the orange and gives us the excuse to occasionally wear our great white pants that doesn't (A) turn us into a team that wears white pants with our primary home jersey, which we traditionally don't do and (B) prevents us from utilizing the white pants on the road, which I really don't like.
