Come And See How Good I Look! - Blackout Uniforms (Week 1)

Welcome to “Come And See How Good I Look”, the new TDG fashion column where we’ll dissect new alternate uniforms, weekly uniform combinations, and anything else that seems sartorial (e.g. I’m guessing the Goldy Halloween costume ranking will fall under this post later in the year).

GopherNation suggested I call this column “Who Cares, Just Win” but since I clearly DO care this felt disingenuous and counterintuitive. And once my mind turned to the wise words of Ron Burgundy, well, there really wasn’t any other option for what to call this series of posts.

These posts will, of course, include grades and rankings. I may tweak the scale as I go, but to start I’ve settled on the following options:

⭐ I immediately regret this decision! This is for when things go horribly wrong. Like Michigan State green highlighter uniform wrong. I pray we never have to use this ranking or I’m going to find myself in a glass case of emotion.

⭐⭐ Hey, where’d you get those clothes, the toilet store? I don’t care if you’re polite and rarely late, this isn’t good enough.

⭐⭐⭐ I’m kind of big deal. These uniforms smell of rich mahogany and are certainly worth keeping around.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look! These are uniforms so fine they make Sinatra look like a hobo.

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The Minnesota Gophers have made the launch of this column easy by announcing over the weekend that the team will be wearing a new alternate uniform versus the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The one problem here is that I’m about to rank the uniforms off of a teaser trailer. Which means I’m not really getting to see the uniforms. Sure, we get a pretty good idea of them from the “hype up the players” reveal section of the Twitter video, but that’s not the same as a promo image released by Minnesota. Still, I think there is more than enough here for a ranking.

Helmet

In my opinion the key detail in making an alternate color uniform work is the helmet. More often than not, the traditional helmet color schemes will clash with an alternate color uniform, thus making the whole thing look worse. Minnesota under Fleck has generally done well with this, and this uniform appears to be no exception.

The choice of (matte?) maroon was undoubtedly the right one here. That’s the primary U color that does best with a gray/black color scheme. Going black with white accents for the Block M and the oar stripe pull the helmet together with the uniform and should look slick under the lights.

Helmet Grade:

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look! I know this color combo isn’t for everyone, but if you’re going to do it at Minnesota this is the way to do it right.

Uniform

Overall I tend to grade a little softer when it comes to “blackout” style uniforms that are done right (for the sake of this column we’re going to assume there is a way to do them right). Why? Because they can so easily be done wrong. Take for example, black basketball uniforms with gold letters/numbers that make you look like Iowa when you play for Minnesota. That’s an “I immediately regret this decision” level offense and these uniforms are not that.

Uniform Grade:

⭐⭐ Hey, where’d you get those clothes, the toilet store? While these uniforms aren’t a favorite of mine, I feel bad using the toilet store ranking. But at least based on the teaser video I just can’t go with “I’m kind of a big deal.”

Overall

Put the helmet and uniform together and I think you’ve got a solid “⭐⭐⭐ I’m kind of big deal.” uniform combo. I’m interested to see if my opinion about the uniform improves when I see them in person on 9/2. In the meantime, I AM SO HAPPY FOOTBALL IS ALMOST HERE!