Well folks, since the college football season got under way a few weekends ago, you might have missed out on some few surprises while you were busy scrounging through your closet looking to find your favorite teams Alma mater foam dome hat & over sized number 1 foam finger. Throughout the country, a select group of college football teams unveiled some new uniforms for their inaugural games of the 2011 season. Some of them were pretty cool (Like Arizona State pictured above), some of them still need some work, and some of them were down right ugly! So I am going to give you a list of what teams had the coolest uniforms and what ones need to go back to the drawing board.

The Good

1. Arizona State Sun Devils

ASU officially kicked off the start of the 2011 season with a 48-14 win over UC Davis, and you might have noticed some differences in the Sun Devils’ unis. They looked more “devilish” than usual, as upon closer inspection, you can clearly see that they have a completely revamped uniform and logo. These jerseys were a deep maroon color with gold lettering and a yellow helmet with a maroon red pitchfork. They no longer have the logo of the beloved French looking cartoonish devil mascot “Sparky” (still the mascot for ASU) on their helmets. This started back in April when ASU unveiled its new football (and basketball) uniforms that included different helmet and uniform schemes. The new football uniforms have black, red and yellow jerseys and yellow and black helmets. The one uniform combination that seemed to be loved by all fans was the all black uniform with red and yellow lettering. Now, for the players sake, I just hope they are not planning to use these new uniforms during those home games in Arizona until at least October! Anyways Arizona State’s logo and uniform change was by far the best so far. I think they are cool and a step up from that Funny looking French guy in a devil costume. I do plan on getting a jersey at some point. Here are some more images, courtesy of Nikeblog.com.

2. Maryland Terrapins

On the Monday night season opener against the Miami Hurricanes, Maryland went all-out and unveiled one of their 32 (yes thats right! 32) new football uniforms that they will plan to wear throughout the course of the season. The Monday night uniforms were helmet and shoulder designs that mimic the Maryland state flag, with black and yellow stripes to honor the founders of the original colony, the Lords Baltimore, opposite a white and red cross to honor the Crossland family, to honor of the first Lord Baltimore, John Calvert (just a little history lesson for all of you who didnt know who he was). These actually looked cool, kind of like they should be a new design for NASCAR  but all in all, the uniforms were paying homage to the state, and they did the trick as the ‘Terps dug the new unis too as they rolled over Miami 32-24. Solecollector.com has a bunch of images you can see here.

3. Boise State Broncos

Over the past few years, the Broncos have launched many new uniform schemes. This small conference powerhouse again played the inaugural game with this years Nike Pro Combat uniform, an all white uniform with blue lettering and white helmet with a crazy evil looking bronco that screams “come get some!” Another cool design for Nike. The Broncos again came in and showed that, even though this school plays in the Mountain West Conference (they originally played in the WAC conference, but transferred out this year), a smaller non-major conference, they can hang with the big boys of the SEC as they manhandled the Georgia Bulldogs 35-21. Here’s a look at all of the new Uniform combinations, including that sick helmet design.

The Bad

1. Georgia Bulldogs

Since we just mentioned Boise State, I figured that I would go ahead and talk about the Georgia Bulldogs Nike Pro Combat Edition uniforms next.  Some of the schemes that Nike uses are hit or miss, and this one was definitely a miss. The metallic gray & red helmet with the bright red uniforms and black trimming didn’t really thrill me. I didn’t think of the University of Georgia when I was looking at those uniforms. I could have seen that scheme on maybe Rutgers or Utah but not UGA. It honestly looked like a red power ranger costume! All they would have needed was the red ranger power sword and he would have been good to go for Halloween. As always, here is a link where you can see more of this monstrosity.

2. Oklahoma State Cowboys

This season OSU decided they wanted to jump into the alternate uniforms pool like Oregon and Maryland with 48 (yes count them, 48) different color-scheme options. When it comes to helmets, the Cowboys have become the Oregon Ducks of the Bible Belt, using three different helmets in black, gray and the classic white. That goes along with four jersey and pants colors (orange, black, gray and white). Sheesh! Anytime you have more than two rotating football helmets in use, it is overkill. I mean Penn State has not changed their logo and uniforms since forever, and I like those ones more than any of Oklahoma State’s! No matter how much you defend it, 48 is a little much. It’s fine if you feel the need to update your logo, make it more “fierce” or stronger, but I don’t care what anyone else says, it’s not cool to have a wardrobe of 30+ uniforms just because the team has had a run of a few good seasons. Just look at all those combinations!

The Ugly

1. Oregon Ducks

This one for sure takes the cake, ladies and gentleman. Again, with the rest of the Nike Pro Combat series, Oregon’s uniforms have usually been hit or miss. In this case it is a big swing and a miss! The whole Gunmetal black helmet and all black uniforms with neon green/yellow trimming were not really cutting it in my book. These ducks might have been suffering from a bad acid trip before heading to play LSU, and their play showed as these uniforms were the only thing that they had going for them all of Saturday night. The Ducks lost 40-27. The only Ducks reference in the whole uniform is a set of imprinted wings on each shoulder, and i had to squint to even see that. The thing I couldn’t help but look at, however, were those Neon sneakers. YIKES!! I was getting a headache just watching them run around the field. The Ducks’ uniforms are a far cry from what they used to wear, and it will only get worse as the Ducks plan to use over 50 different patters for their uniforms this season. What were they thinking?

Arizona State image courtesy of: http://www.nikeblog.com
Maryland image courtesy of: http://solecollector.com
Boise State image courtesy of: http://no2minutewarning.com
Georgia image courtesy of: http://redandblack.com
Oklahoma State image courtesy of: http://www.solecollector.com
Oregon image courtesy of: http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com