NCAA Football: Stop The Spread Of Yellow (Football Uniform) Fever

There's a fever taking over college football.  Unfortunately, the prescription is not more cowbell.

More and more teams are trying to outdo each other to find the craziest, most gaudy uniform color combinations possible.  The primary offender in this department seems to be the color yellow.

The trend started back in 2003 when Oregon debuted a set of uniforms that looked like they had been washed in yellow hi-lighter fluid.

Since that time, more schools have been trotting out yellow alternates.  California (pictured above), West Virginia, and Minnesota have all worn yellow jerseys this season.  Oregon wore a new set of yellow jerseys last weekend as well. 

What do they have in common? Besides the fact that Nike makes them, they all look like crap. 

I expect them to come to life and say "Parkay!"

I don't have anything against the color yellow, per se.  It looks great on football pants, like for Michigan or USC. 

Looks good on helmets, too.  See LSU or Arizona State. 

But for jerseys, leave the yellow in the closet.

So why do teams wear these crazy things?  Does Nike have a secret mission to destroy HD TVs with these high visibility uniforms? 

Are we just in a phase of American culture where the outlandish is stylish?  Remember the 70's when the Pirates and A's were trotting out the mix-and-match uniforms that featured yellow prominently?

More likely, these uniforms seem to pop up on programs that need attention. While many of these programs have been successful in the past few years, none of them have large amounts of tradition to follow.  It's not like they have been successful and wearing the same thing for 50 years. 

I highly doubt we would see Michigan or USC break out a yellow football alternate, the backlash by traditionalists would be too great.

So by being garish, they have succeeded in their mission. 

I am talking about their football teams when I normally wouldn't give them 15 seconds of attention. 

Damn you all.