Illinois Football Uniforms

#76      

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#78      
All of the Lovie Era uniform combos were just awful, but the all-orange look - without a hint of white outline ANYWHERE to add an ounce of style - is actually hilarious looking back.

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It's even funnier that we actually took the time to INCLUDE an outline around the navy Block I ... but that outline was (A) the same color as the helmet itself but (B) a different shade of that color. :ROFLMAO: Like, what is this?!?!

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Looking at these two uniforms side by side is interesting because they aren't that different, yet they're different in all the ways that matter.

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#80      
Since our actual football team is unfortunately quite depressing right now :ROFLMAO: ... I guess talking about uniforms is all there is left, lol! A lot of fans here have voiced the opinion that they would rather have a sleeve stripe design vs. the shoulder strip design we have, and I would probably be one of them. So, if you HAD to pick a non-shoulder-stripe-design option out of the other Big Ten schools (of course tailored to our colors and everything), who has the best replacement option?

Since I cannot post that many images and these are broad categories, I will try to eliminated some as options and group the others into "types."

Eliminated - Shoulder Stripe Design
Nebraska (new as of this year ... not a fan, lol)
UCLA (exact same as us)
USC

Eliminated - NO Stripe Design
Indiana
Michigan (technically have a very tiny design at the end of the sleeve on the away jersey)
Rutgers
Penn State

Eliminated - Too Unique
Oregon


1) Simple 2-Stripe Pattern
Wisconsin
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2) Simple 3-Stripe Pattern
Washington
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3) Slightly More Complicated 3-Stripe Pattern (Not All Stripes the Same Size and Gap)
Northwestern
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Minnesota
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Purdue
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4) Three Stripes All Different Colors
Maryland
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5) "Special" or "Complicated" Design (Would Need to Become Illini-Specific)
(The bar for "complicated" here is pretty much it's not the most plain, EA Team Builder-esque design you could easily replicate. :ROFLMAO: )

Iowa
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Michigan State (faint Greek Key design)
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Ohio State
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My thoughts would actually be pretty simple.

1) If someone actually came up with a cool "Illini-themed" design that only we would have and it was subtle and looked good ... I would obviously love that. Think like a faint version of our Grange Era Throwback design on the stomach but worked onto our sleeves:
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Just making it small enough to fit on the sleeve and changing the orange to our modern shade could look really cool and unique ... and then shift our white numbers currently on the sleeve up to the shoulders. We'd become the only team in the league besides MSU with something truly unique to us and memorable.

2) However, assuming that wouldn't happen for whatever reason, I think the Minnesota design specifically (with navy replacing maroon and orange replacing yellow) would work well with our uniforms. It's just a little more visually pleasing and less plain than what Washington has.
 
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