Once you go black...

Quick thoughts from the public unveiling of the new ASU identity.

What I love:

• The new Sun Devil Bold font. Very clean - looks good both in the lettering and the uniform numbers.
• The consistency. One shade of gold; common look for all programs.
• The way that black was introduced. If you are going to bring black in to the color scheme, do it right. And this is doing it right.
• The matte black football helmets. Possibly one of the best helmets in college football.
• The basketball uniforms. Sharp, clean, tasteful.

Meh:

• The new "trident with flames" logo.  It may grow on me, but I feel like the handle is too short in proportion to the prongs.
• The all-white football combination (although paired with the black helmets, it could look good).
• The "ASU" lettering on the football sleeves. Not sure what the point is; would have preferred numbers.

As expected, the message boards have exploded with people whining about the changes and bemoaning the loss of "tradition". ASU has very little tradition when it comes to branding and uniforms. Heck, we were the Bulldogs for many years, then wore numbers on our helmets (Alabama-style) for some of our "glory years". Sparky has only been on the helmets since 1980.

Change is good - embrace it and let's have some fun in 2011!

Wow! Just wow!

I wasn't expecting to post an article about baseball at this time of the year, but today's entry over at UniWatch could not be overlooked. Thanks to Randy Policar, Asst. Sports Information Director at ASU, we now have the best shots ever of the Sun Devils' "tequila sunrise" uniform. Anyone remember in what year(s) these were worn?

New football jerseys revealed

No official verification yet (that I have seen) but Cactus Sports has posted an image of the new ASU football jersey.

Overall, not too bad, especially in comparison to some of Nike's atrocities. My only complaint? The introduction of black into the color scheme (as a thin border around the numerals). Overall though, thumbs up.

Will be interesting to see if the pants get the same piping. Most important will be to see them in a game under lights.

Updated 8/12/09: These are confirmed as official. Poll results show about two-thirds of fans dislike the new unis.

Uniform madness

Nothing seems to generate more discussion that suggestions to change the football uniforms. One thing we can all agree on is that the banana uniforms from the Marmie era were awful.

I see lots of requests for pictures of these atrocities, including today's Uni Watch, so for your viewing pleasure...


Note that the back of the Woodson card indicates that these uniforms were worn versus USC. They were also used in at least one game versus CGU. If anyone can provide the exact dates when these were worn, please post to the comments.

Updated 1/10/08: Today's Uni Watch follows up with some additional pictures provided by the ASU SID here, here (an especially ugly close-up) and here. Also, confirmation of the comment left here yesterday that these monstrosities were used for two games: CGU in 1989 and USC in 1990.

Sagarin more impressed than our own fans

While Sun Devil fans continue to pick apart last night's thrashing of Stanford, including insane criticism of Rudy Carpenter here and here, Jeff Sagarin's latest rankings put us at #8 in the nation.

New uniforms made their appearance for the first road game of the season, and much debate ensued. If you had asked me before tonight, I would have told you I preferred gold pants, but I must admit I thought the new maroon pants, with the interlocking AS logo, looked awesome.

While we were gone...

Random events in Sun Devil land. The Sun Devil Marching Band unveiled new uniforms (the band even has its own message board!); TBone is looking for Sun Devils in Texas (not 100% sure what he plans to do with them); I found a site that everyone else has probably known about for a long time, which allows me to track news stories about Dennis Erickson; Gaddabout wrote a brief ASU recruiting history; Uni Watch discussed why one member of the baseball team has been wearing a green undershirt for each game.

Oregon State turn to Brandi Chastain for uniform advice

Unbelievably, Oregon State has managed to "out-ugly" their in-state rivals in the uniform wars.

As noted by Uni Watch, the Beavers must "really like how the front of the jersey looks like a sports bra."