Rutgers Unveiles New Football Uniforms

Rutgers unveiled their new football uniforms in New York City earlier this month, and yup, they are hideous. It seems that Nike is doing its best to make college football uniforms as ugly as possible, and Rutgers is just the latest team to dawn their Pro Combat abominations on a weekly basis. I am a uniform traditionalist and liked the late Schiano era uniforms  a great deal (save for the red pants, which I think were horrid), but I totally understand why Rutgers HAD to adopt these eye sores. Rutgers is not a traditional power whose uniforms are a major part of a rich tradition that has been cultivated for over half a century like USC or Penn State or Alabama. New uniforms were needed to stand out (or fit in, really) and grab the attention of recruits. Even some of the most historic programs in the country aren't above this, and had to sacrifice their good uniform taste/tradition in order to appeal to 17 year olds. I may not like these kinds of uniforms (and I am only 20), but most high school and college aged kids love these kinds of threads, and Rutgers has their attention now. Look on the bright side, these uniforms could have been a whole hell of a lot worse (think this or this or this).

IMPORTANT UNIFORM ANALYSIS
 
Initial Imopressions
Mighty Morphin' Power Rutgers! Having uniforms where the pants are the same color as the jerseys are going to make you think of the Power Rangers. Especially when your three colors, in this case red, black, and white, are the colors of actual Power Rangers. The silver numbers, which I'm guessing is meant to resemble a Knight's armor, is also a characteristic of the new-age Power Rangers.

Silver numbers seem to be a go-to thing for the Pro Combat series, so this isn't even unique. Maybe they could have gone with something like medieval numbering instead to be original? But the very worst thing about these silver numbers is they remind me of Syracuse's basketball uniforms, and Rutgers should not be doing anything that remotely resembles Albany's College Team.

Special Features

Nike added a few subtle features that makes the uniforms Rutgers specific, modeling the uniforms after Knight Armor. "Sword swipes" were added on the shoulders and helmet to give them a battle tested look. This is neat , but I'm wondering why they don't have scratches on the numbers. Everyone knows that the most vulnerable part of a Knight's armor is the mid section, where there are spaces between the different plates of armor. The swordsmen wielding their weapon against these guys must have been extremely incompetent, attacking the head and shoulder areas, which are the most protected parts of the armor, instead of the midsection. But I digress, who cares what does and does not make sense anyway....

Nike also added stripes down the side of the pants to resemble the blade of a sword. It's pretty cool, since that's where a Knight would typically carry their weapon, but I wish they would have went all out with it and included a handle on top of the blade. I think it looks stupid with just the blade.

Helmets
 

For some reason, Rutgers and Nike decided to go with chrome color helmets, similar to what Oregon wore in the Rose Bowl last season. I really don't like them, and I don't think they even match the rest of the uniform. They also have the scratch marks to indicate sword swipes on them, but for some reason the scratches are black. I don't know about you, but I've never seen iron (which is what Knight's armor was made of) turn black from some scratches. I'm sure no one else cares, but I am a stickler for historical and scientific accuracy, and this bothers me.

Additional Uniforms Combinations via DirtyRU on the Scarlet Nation Board
(Click the link above to see the different combinations.)
With out the full on Power Ranger look, the uniforms look a little bit better. #1 and #2 are both solid looks, hopefully these will be the normal home uniforms, rather than the all red. (I hate red pants, and they look even worse with red tops.) I prefer the all white to uniform #3, and as I've seen pointed out else where, #4 looks an awful lot like bizzaro Syracuse uniforms. Again, we don't want that. On #5, the helmet and jersey don't match the pants, but maybe it would look better with the "black" helmets. #6 is decent, but for some reason it reminds me of the Orlando Rage uniforms from the short lived XFL.


These uniforms are not pretty and I am not at all excited to see these uniforms in action. The old uniforms had a traditional, classy look, but now we are stuck with these hideous things that replaced them. Unfortunately though, this is what things are like when you have to constantly kiss the asses of 17 year olds in order to improve recruiting and become a big time football program.