Illinois Football Uniforms

#77      
illini0440
Basketball Logo GIF by Lumi
 
#82      
altgeld88
This photo was in an X post on the 2026 Illini Football thread this morning as a tribute to Mikey Dudek. I'm pasting it here simply to demonstrate what a hot mess our font and color scheme was before the new unis. I realize people rag on the present font (a font that I like) but what we enjoy now is orders of magnitude better than this hot mess. It's like a uni mad lib.

Look at that helmet color.

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#83      
illinoistradition
altgeld88 said:
This photo was in an X post on the 2026 Illini Football thread this morning as a tribute to Mikey Dudek. I'm pasting it here simply to demonstrate what a hot mess our font and color scheme was before the new unis. I realize people rag on the present font (a font that I like) but what we enjoy now is orders of magnitude better than this hot mess. It's like a uni mad lib.

Look at that helmet color.

View attachment 51248
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Seriously. In what world does that helmet color even come close to our color scheme? Those jerseys then matched our lack of success.
 
#84      
altgeld88
illinoistradition said:
Seriously. In what world does that helmet color even come close to our color scheme? Those jerseys then matched our lack of success.
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This stuff is much more than simply cosmetic. It was indicative of the general disarray in our program from Beckman through Lovie. I'm reminded of John Madden; the guy has a popular, and completely unfounded, image as a lovable goof. In fact he was maniacally attentive to detail, all the way down to suspecting the work ethic of any player who failed to polish his dress shoes, which is why he won Super Bowls and is a HOF coach.

(And, yes, I realize that Lovie recruited some excellent talent, particularly some diamonds in the rough; however, he was largely retired-in-place.)
 
#85      
Birdus
altgeld88 said:
This stuff is much more than simply cosmetic. It was indicative of the general disarray in our program from Beckman through Lovie. I'm reminded of John Madden; the guy has a popular, and completely unfounded, image as a lovable goof. In fact he was maniacally attentive to detail, all the way down to suspecting the work ethic of any player who failed to polish his dress shoes, which is why he won Super Bowls and is a HOF coach.

(And, yes, I realize that Lovie recruited some excellent talent, particularly some diamonds in the rough; however, he was largely retired-in-place.)
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A very hot-mess it indeed was
 
#86      
Fighter of the Nightman
altgeld88 said:
This photo was in an X post on the 2026 Illini Football thread this morning as a tribute to Mikey Dudek. I'm pasting it here simply to demonstrate what a hot mess our font and color scheme was before the new unis. I realize people rag on the present font (a font that I like) but what we enjoy now is orders of magnitude better than this hot mess. It's like a uni mad lib.

Look at that helmet color.

View attachment 51248
Click to expand...
Looking back, this uniform looks like the epitome of an "insecure" brand (I know people hate when that word is used in these conversations, but...) just trying to do way too much to try to look trendy, cool, sleek, stylish, etc. And then the Lovie Era uniforms seemed like such a kneejerk self correction back to as plain as possible. :ROFLMAO: Like, these uniforms are not just doomed to fail! However, I just imagine myself creating a uniform using the EA CFB Team Builder website and my decision process, lol. You don't need that (seemingly massive??) neck collar when you already have numbers on the shoulders, outlines on the numbers, a 3-wide sleeve stripe, a 3-wide pants stripe and (in older versions of this set) a 3-wide stripe on the helmet, too.

Our current set certainly has a ton of stripes, but it sort of commits to that look unapologetically, and that can work ... think LSU and the Patriots, which had these looks before us. Some people might not like it (I'm a sleeve stripe guy, myself!), but it's clearly a deliberate choice. These uniforms look like we were just trying to fill it out, sort of. I have to ask, though ... isn't this literally the exact same number font we have on the current set?? I didn't follow that part.
 
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