Ugliest Uniforms of the Season (so far)

The world of college football has welcomed alternative aesthetics in its uniform designs for years, with Oregon and the designers at Nike leading the way in creating a different uniform almost every week. Now, with every team under the sun trying to grab attention in any way possible, the "alternate" uniform is a staple on Saturday nights. When you have even the most invisible teams of the Mountain West Conference going for "unique", you're going to get some stinkers. Here's the ugliest jerseys of 2014, so far.


What is this, 1930? Teams are getting gutsier with the whole "no color" thing, with the intention of giving off an industrial feel. Some teams execute this well, particularly when going with dark gray, but a light gray like this? That's the color gray that you get when you mix the dark part and the white part of bird poop together.


Regardless of how you feel about Pittsburgh teams, there's no denying black and yellow/gold is a strong, strong look. Very pleasing to the eye, creating great contrast while still including color. So why would Mizzou go with so little yellow in this uniform? On top of that, they wore an exact version of this helmet the previous week, except with a yellow logo instead of silver. It was gorgeous! This is Mizzou changing things up for no reason, and that always leads to bad uniforms.

Oregon State

Yeugh. Okay, the first thing wrong? Just going with two colors. Accents make the uniform, and when you have such a blasé design to begin with (no front lettering, no textures, no logos anywhere), they can at least make them bearable. Now, you have the helmet being the same color as the jersey, and when that color is orange? Terrible. Numbers on the helmets? Inane. The steel black with orange instead of just jet black? Why? WHY?


Be honest, if the Razorbacks didn't have that hog on the side of their helmet, you wouldn't be able to tell who was the home team, and who was away. Arkansas is committing a very specific sin here: looking too much like your opponent. Since Arkansas was the home team, this is on them.

Iowa State

Yeah, I'll take a Big Mac combo, large, with a Sprite to drink, and can I get no mayo on the Big Mac? Uh, let's see, what do you want... okay I'll also take a medium vanilla shake-- aw, man the machine is always broken here! Okay, just a large Hi-C, and a ten-piece McNuggets. Sweet and sour sauce, please.


Oh lord. I know they went with this color to honor cancer survivors and victims, but good lord neon yellow is not making anybody healthier. It would be somewhat forgivable if they chose to use the color as an accent elsewhere, such as on the numbers or stripes. Instead, they go with thin black numbers and not a logo to be seen anywhere. If you're going with an ugly but unique color, go bold with it.


Regardless of how you feel about the gross commercialization of breast cancer "awareness" (just look up Susan G. Komen's financials someday, you'll be horrified), there's a good way to use pink in uniforms, especially when the primary color is black. So where did Oregon go wrong? Two parts: the silver on the pads really contrasts with the pink, and the lack of any design on the pants. That's not unusual from Oregon, but with this particular design? It just looks like all the players are wearing tights, or god forbid, onesies. *shudder*


Oh lord, what fresh hell is this? The blue on red. The chrome logo with numbers. The font for "Jayhawks" on the front. The font for the numbers. Everything about this is absolutely hideous to such a degree that I can't imagine how anybody could have approved this on paper. Kansas, you deserve to have Charlie Weis as your coach... again. 

Utah State

This isn't even so much ugly as it is perplexing. Call me crazy, but you have two different kinds of blue here. There's the dark, steely blue helmet with a texture on the helmet, then there's the dark, straightforward blue that we have on the pants. I mean... the equipment team had ONE JOB. If you're going with a color, you stick with that color. This is like having a boyfriend who doesn't care what shade of green the kitchen is going to be. It's important, Brad! My mother was right about you.