My 5 Favorite Uniform Combinations

I’ve pored through all forty-eight combos like an absolute crazed sports fashionista over the last 24 hours trying to figure out which is my favorite. I feel like Walter White jammed into the back of his winnebago in Breaking Bad trying to find exactly the right formula for the drugs he’s making. Except I’m not doing anything illicit or illegal. Well, according to most people I’m not doing anything illicit or illegal.

I have four general rules for what a good uniform combination is and isn’t.

1. Can’t overwhelm you – Texas all whites? Good. Virginia Tech mismatching shoulder pads? VERY bad.
2. Has to be smooth – I generally like Oregon’s uniforms but I want to come through my TV screen when they try to go green on neon yellow on black on green. I shouldn’t feel like players are optical illusions.
3. Needs to pop – This is the Penn St./Alabama rule. When PSU goes white-out in Happy Valley it looks insane. Even though they have the simplest uniforms in the country they still pop in HD. This is one reason I don’t like orange on orange for OSU. It looks like Plaxico’s penitentiary friends were let loose in central Oklahoma.
4. Should make you look faster than you actually are – This was my favorite thing about going from the Miles-era uniforms to the Gundy-era ones. Whenever Josh Fields scrambled in those Miles unis it looked like he was running a 7.3 forty. They were big and clunky. The new ones were sleek and seemed to even make XLK look fast. Well…”fast.”

With that in mind, let’s get to my top 5:

#5. White | Black | White

This is essentially the inverse of what was worn up in Lawrence for the KU game last year. It satisfies rules #1 and #3 of my manifesto and the white-black-white-black with all orange trim will look terrific.

#4 Silver | Orange | Silver

Silver is still the wild card. I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to look like on the field so I might be removing this from my top 5 in about fifty days but I think the orange/silver contrast has a ton of potential. It’s like the poor man’s version of the orange/navy contrast Auburn has going on.

#3 Black | Silver | Black

I couldn’t decide between this and the all blacks but then I remembered that we went like 1-863 in the 90s for “Black Saturdays.” I think this satisfies rule #3 and maybe #4 though I could just be getting “will make you look skinny” confused with “will make you look speedy.” There should be a restraining order on my mind for what I’m thinking Justin Gilbert will do in these on kick returns.

#2 Black | White | Orange

Black shoes with white laces. That’s the next step. And I hope Dan Bailey left a Dick’s gift card behind for Quinn Sharp to pick up a pair of side-of-the-road-worker-orange kicks for this year. That tradition needs to be passed down.

#1 White | Black | Orange

These are my favorites and I don’t think it’s really that close. In fact I think these should be the de facto “we’re playing a massive game we have to win” uniforms. Though with how much this operation cost that probably won’t be happening.

Let me know what your favorite combo is in the comments below!