Column: College football teams need some added flash

Fashion is a big part of college football. Teams want to set new trends and get all the attention.

More teams need to look into getting new uniforms and helmets.

Saturday was a big day for the unveiling of new uniforms and helmets.

Every year, Notre Dame plays a so-called “home” game away from South Bend for its Shamrock Series, an annual game where the Irish wear a special uniform. Notre Dame played against Arizona State in its 2013 Shamrock Series uniforms.

In the past, Notre Dame has traveled to the Alamodome in Texas, Yankee Stadium in New York, FedEx Field in Maryland, Soldier Field in Illinois and Cowboys Stadium in Texas for its Shamrock Series “home” game.

This year the Irish wore all white uniforms with special gold helmets, breaking tradition and foregoing their normal gold pants. The jerseys had gold numbers with green outlining.

Notre Dame’s opponent, Arizona State, broke out new “fire” helmets for the game with gold flames covering the dark helmet.

The game aired on NBC with much of the college football fan base watching. The game finished third in the number of viewers during the prime-time slot Saturday night.

Arizona State was aware of this and took advantage of the national audience to show off their new helmets.

Northwestern wore black matte-finish helmets in their game against No. 4 Ohio State.
Also, Tennessee wore “smokey” gray uniforms Saturday.

New uniforms and helmets help these college football programs both financially and in terms of recruiting.

Many colleges have already experimented with different uniforms and helmets.

The University of Oregon is known for having a multitude of helmets, jerseys, pants and shoes, as the co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight, was a student athlete at Oregon.

Oregon has more than 1,000 different combinations of uniforms in their possession.

There is a website devoted to displaying what the Oregon Ducks wear every game. The website ducktracker.blogspot.com shows the helmet, jerseys, pants and socks.
One of the major benefits of the new uniforms is revenue. If the jerseys look nice, then fans are going to buy them.

Sometimes people will buy jerseys just to buy them or because the team did well in those jerseys, such as upsetting their rival.

When a team unveils a new uniform, there is usually a lot of excitement about it. Fans and critics wonder how the jerseys are going to look in person and on TV.

The new uniforms also appeal to high school prospects, making jerseys one of the newest recruiting tools.

Notre Dame had as many as 65 prospects at their most recent game, according to Tom Lemming at the South Bend Tribune. As Maryland coach Randy Edsall has said, “Kids are into gear. They love designs.”

If they wanted to, these schools could put spin on their tradition and update their looks, as opposed to completely altering it.

If any college football program wanted to get attention and increase their popularity, getting new uniforms is the way to go.

Some teams really need to improve their current looks, even if only for one game.

College football uniforms are changing all the time, and the programs need to stay on top of it in order to make sure they stay competitive in the recruiting game.

­— jayljohn@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Jaylen Johnson on Twitter @nelyaJohnsonIDS.