Friday Morning Football: Tradition vs Change in College Football

There is a huge discussion that constantly rages through football and makes for some great water cooler debate. It is the idea of Tradition vs Change. While Tradition vs Change is a debate in many areas of the game, for the sake of this blog, I am going to direct the majority of my comments towards uniforms and helmets. There is a significant segment of football fans, coaches, etc who prefer the simpler uniforms of tradition laden schools such as Alabama, Penn State, Michigan, Nebraska, and USC for example. Often the demographic for those with this preference is 40's and older males who grew up watching those uniforms when only a handful of college football games were on each Saturday.



Then, there is the younger generation who has seen the coverage of football grow to epic proportions and like how daring Oregon has been and enjoys seeing Arizona State or Oklahoma State or the mighty Wyoming Cowboys in a different colored/design helmet depending on the weekend.


For me, I fall in between both groups. As an unabashed Nebraska fan, I love the traditional look of the simple N on the white helmet. One thing to keep in mind is that even this traditional helmet has gone through a number of look changes. At one point the Cornhuskers wore red helmet shells. On the white helmets they started with player numbers, moved to an offset NU on the helmet before finally just going with the N. The facemasks went from gray to red. So even traditional looks have had small changes over time.

I prefer my Huskers stay with the traditional white helmet, red facemask, red stripe and red N for 10 or so of their 12 games each season. However, for the other 1 or 2 games each year, I have no issues with them sporting an alternate look. And as for that alternate look, go as crazy as you want to! Put them in black helmets or red helmets with alternate logos. One helmet design recently had the helmet look like corn! I say, if you are going to go alternate, go big or don't go at all.

Unlike some who have hated how Oregon changes it's look more often than a chameleon, I have been okay with it. Some uniforms are going to suck when you do that. But some are going to be awesome! It is the risk you take. As for Oregon, it feels as if their tradition is actually just to change. If they stopped and wore just one home uniform combo and one away uniform combo at this point, we would have a lot less to talk about at the water cooler!

In a later blog, I will discuss the helmet and uniforms of the NFL. But for now, where you stand in the debate? Who is your school and what do you think of their uniforms and what they have done with it over the years?