Jersey Mania : A comprehensive look at recent NCAA Football gear

 

A booming trend in college football is for many teams to roll out a new jersey for almost half of their games each year. Whether its a new flashy, vibrant colored attire or a themed jersey, for example a Military Appreciation get-up, schools are embracing the crazy jersey hype.

 

The first school to come to mind when talking about this jersey onslaught is obviously the Oregon Ducks. For the past, almost 10 years, the Ducks from up north have been donning flamboyant jerseys for all of their games. The co-founder and Chairman of Nike, Phil Knight was an alumna of the University of Oregon and pours money and clothing into the school, giving them arguably the best equipment in the nation. Upon a quick search, I found a number of 512 different jersey combinations that Oregon could sport. To my understanding that number was discovered a few years ago so I believe it may prove to be even more, today. “Oregon scripts its football outfits the spring before each season to properly coordinate its home and road costuming with the weather, the season, the time of day and even the opponents’ uniforms.”

 

The realm of jersey’s is so large that an entire blog has been created to cover it. Uni-Watch.com was started by Paul Lukas, an avid gear fan, and he describes the site as, “The Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics.” He has over 67,000 followers on Twitter and posts a new jersey nearly every day. 

 

“It used to be your uniform lasted for a generation or a decade, and now it’s once a week,” said Lukas, He believes the uniform trends represent a broader cultural shift. “This mirrors the notion of having to check your email and Twitter feed every few minutes because people need a fresh jolt of stimulation.”

 

Teams take to their social media accounts to release their upcoming looks almost every time now. Many teams have even set up football equipment specific Twitter accounts to show the behind the scenes looks at their new gear. The likes of LSU, Clemson, and Texas A&M.

 

For example, just this past week, Texas A&M has released a teaser of what their jersey will look like for their final game of the year versus Missouri. They have even gone as far to release images of a helicopter that they call their “Swagcopter” with the pattern the plan to unveil. This has been spread all across Twitter and has truly created anticipation and buzz to see what these jerseys look like, and of course for the game this weekend. 

 

The outlandish jerseys get fans of the teams and  people talking on Twitter and thus tune in to watch the game. These eye opening jerseys become trending on social media often and garner great exposure for the team, university and truly even the network that is broadcasting the game. 

 

As noted before, Paul Lukas and UniWatch is the not the only quality account to follow regarding this topic, as many teams have specific accounts for their football teams. My favorite account on Twitter is that of ESPN Sports Business Reporter Darren Rovell. Not only does he tweet many jerseys but he covers all of professional and college sports as well. 

 

As covered in a previous blog post and podcast, the topic of football recruiting is a cut throat industry always looking to out sell other schools. In the case of Oregon, a myriad of jerseys has truly proven to be a draw for prospective athletes. This may be a reason why other schools are adding numerous jerseys and it is amazing how this can be a recruiting tool. 

 

This jersey craze is not going to stop anytime soon, it will just be a matter of how big it gets.

 

For a look at a Bleacher Report article covering all new 2013 jersey changes, view here.