Maryland Football: Why Their New Uniforms Are Not as Bad as We Think

The biggest news coming out of college football's first weekend seems to be the state of Maryland's new uniforms.

The consensus seems to be that the uniforms are, in a word, fugly.

While I agree, it's time to buck the trend and celebrate the creativity that Under Armour took in developing those gems.

Taking lessons from past uniforms, you can make a case that they were not the worst of all-time. You might be persuaded by the end of this that they were not even that bad, all thing considered.

Probably not, though. Those things were pretty damn ugly.

From the Front It's Not as Offensive

This dude looks tough in this uniform. Which is challenging.

The worst part about the uniform is the patterns on the shoulders and helmet, and how they are not symmetrical. When you minimize that, it is not so bad.

In the picture here, the the gloves, helmet and shoulder pad's presence is not as overwhelming. The pattern acts as an accent.

I just re-read that paragraph. I will now be writing for Martha Stewart Home Living.

They Pay Homage to the Locale Without a Skyline

It's like no one could figure out what a Nugget jersey should look like. Should it be a gold miner? A gold nugget?

No, instead they went with a mountain skyline, with a building carved into it, over a rainbow. It makes no sense. Does the Denver skyline even look like that?

There is so much going on here that it hurts your eyes.

The shoulder pads and helmets on the Maryland uniforms are hectic, but not to this extent.

The Colors Go Together

 Black, yellow, red and white. They at least go together.

Orange, teal and navy. Not as much.

The Maryland uniforms use classic colors that have worked everywhere. The Houston Rockets and Kansas City Chiefs are examples of classic, red, black, yellow and white uniforms that have worked in the past.

I am all for experimenting with color schemes, but the old New York Islander uniforms leave something to be desired. The orange and teal in the Miami Dolphins uniforms are hinted subtly by navy. Here they just get thrown together.

That and they have the Gorton's fisherman on them. Which leads me to my next point.

There Are No Cartoon Characters

The Maryland mascot is the Terrapin. No matter what you do to that it is not going to be intimidating (I suppose you could put a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on there, but that's a stretch).

The Toronto Raptors tried this gimmick when they first came on the scene. It looked silly. Teams have tried in the past to put a cartoon logo on the front and it always looks bad. Always.

Maryland at least avoided that pitfall.

They Are Football Uniforms, at Least

Baseball gets played in pants. Basketball in shorts. Football in pads.

Luckily, no one tried to reinvent the wheel here. Look at this photo. What jumps out? His knees are showing!

Imagine sliding into second base and tearing up your knees.

Now imagine if someone had tried to do something like built in shoulder pads in the uniform. Or played in belly shirts. Sorry Brian Bosworth.

Stripes. They Avoided Stripes

Say what you want about the helmet and shoulder pads. At least they pay respect to something. They are not just arbitrary designs like, oh I don't know, stripes.

Largely regarded as one of the worst uniforms of all-time, this Houston Astros throwback must have been inspired by a sunset. A sunset that just kept repeating over and over.

Stripes are never a good look, horizontal or vertical. I imagine this is what people felt like in the 1970s, taking acid and staring into the sun.

Maryland avoided the curse of the stripes.

I Told You They Could Have Been Worse

They could have had cartoon characters, with some stripes, on an outline of the state of Maryland with pink and green coloring.

That is how it could have been worse, but not by much.

They were still pretty bad. I won't try to convince you any further if you are not already a believer. I don't know that I believe they aren't the worst uniforms ever, either.