Best College Football Uniforms – Week 5
The best college uniforms for Week 5 of the season, as Campus Insiders turns into #FashionInsiders. This week's top threads slant strongly toward the SEC.
The best college uniforms for Week 5 of the season, as Campus Insiders turns into #FashionInsiders. This week’s top threads slant strongly toward the SEC.
So as it turns out, my top threads for Week 4 in college football happened to be spot on. The awesome Twitter account @Uniformswag does a weekly ranking of the best uniforms worn in college football from the previous weekend, and their top 3 aligned perfectly with mine: Utah, Nebraska and Oregon, in that order. Now, I did publish my rankings first, so I’ll go with the theory that I’m a trend-setter like any other fashion expert. It’s what we do.
This week we’ve got three more sweet looks on tap. Let’s rumble.
Best Uniforms For Week 5
NOTE: A thread count grading system is used to evaluate all uniforms. It was developed with proprietary technology in the Campus Insiders fashion lab, and ranges from 1-1,000.
1) Vanderbilt Commodores
Vanderbilt football program doesn’t have the richest of histories. I mean think about it. They’ve appeared in seven bowl games since the ‘50s, and Jay Cutler is likely their “best” product in the NFL. How’s that working out for you, Bears fans? However, I’m not here to shred the program into a million pieces. The #FashionInsider’s job is to discuss fashion, so that’s what I’ll do.
Last season the Commodores unveiled some new uniforms by Nike, one of which they’ll wear this week when the Gators come to town. That would be their gold uniform.
Beginning up top, the helmet is matte black with the typical Vandy “star V” logo on both sides and a black facemask. As I said in last week’s uniform piece, it’s tough to mess up the look of a matte black helmet, and Vanderbilt did a good job here. Rather than using a typical stripe or triple stripe down the middle of the brain bucket, they chose to embrace their “Anchor Down” motto and have an anchor chain as their “stripe.” Then, on the back of the helmet, you’ll find a big anchor. The concept sounds … odd, but trust me, it’s a good look.
The jerseys are the Vanderbilt gold with black letters and numbers, with the Vanderbilt logo sitting on the collar. Maybe the coolest element of the jersey is its sleeves. While the jersey is all gold, the sleeves are a charcoal-ish color with little black anchors scattered on them.
The pants, usually the most uneventful portion of a football uniform, are all gold with Vandy’s logo on the left hip and the Nike logo on the right.
Despite the program’s lack of success on the field, at least they know how to look good (no matter what my colleague Shae Peppler says in the accompanying video).
Thread Count: 815
2) Eastern Washington Eagles
I’ll be straight with you. I don’t know much about the Eastern Washington football team other than that they play on a red field, of which I’m not a fan. Boise State’s blue field was pushing it, and the Eagles’ red crossed the line. That being said, they do know how to create a cool football uniform.
This weekend presents the second annual “Believe Day” game in which fans can purchase specially designed “Eags Believe” shirts. All the proceeds will go to a local cancer foundation. For this game, the Eagles are breaking out some new, gray threads. Like Vanderbilt, their domes will be protected by matte black helmets with their red Eagle logo on both sides. There is no helmet stripe, but in this case it actually looks better without one.
As we move to the jersey, it’s an all gray top with lots of little, black stripes along the shoulders and down the sides. Under the arms of the jersey and up to the front of the shoulders is a solid black area that adds a really cool look to the uniform top. The letters and numbers are all white with the Eagles’ red as the outline. That specific red really creates a crisp look on top of the gray, and helps the white numbers pop out a bit more. And, as I always like to point out when I see it, the shoulders have a triple-stripe pattern on the outside.
The pants are the same gray as the jerseys, only they have a cool looking light-gray pattern going down their sides. The Eagle logo rests on the right hip, and the adidas logo on the other.
What we have here is a pretty legit uniform. It’s extremely modernized without going overboard. It was tough deciding between these and Vanderbilt’s, and ultimately this is our closest race for first that we’ve had yet.
Thread Count: 810
3) Texas A&M Aggies
In what appears to be the year of the throwbacks, Texas A&M will be wearing an all-white edition as they head into Columbia, South Carolina to take on the Gamecocks this weekend. The uniform pays tribute to A&M’s 1956 team that went undefeated (9-0-1) and won the Southwest Conference Championship. Like the uniforms that Miami (FL) will begin wearing in October, A&M’s throwbacks are from adidas’ Primeknit collection.
To start, the helmet is all-white with a maroon stripe splitting it in half from front to back. There is no logo. In fact, the helmet looks identical to the one worn in ’56. The facemask is white, only with a couple bars painted silver/grey to represent the old fashioned single and double-bar facemasks. It’s an inventive touch that I don’t recall ever having been done.
Moving down to the white jersey, whose three maroon shoulder stripes resemble the stripes used in 1956. Beyond that, the number font and color are similar, if not the same as, the ones used with the undefeated team. This weekend’s jerseys will have the customary adidas logo on the collar, the SEC logo on the left chest, and a patch on the right chest honoring the legendary team led by Bear Bryant.
The pants are pretty straightforward: all white with a maroon adidas logo on the right hip.
All in all, these things are nice and clean. Nothing more, nothing less. In the case of throwback uniforms such as these, often times less is more and simple is better. It usually does not look good when teams try too hard to modernize a throwback look.
Thread Count: 700
