The past few seasons have seen the rise of the "alternative" uniform as teams don special unis to commemorate an occasion or fire up the fans. Some schools (quack) have taken the alternative uniform thing to an extreme, while others have broken them out for a nationally televised game or a "black/white-out" for their fans. While some traditionalist nitpick the idea, the view here is that it's a fun thing to do and, besides, the kids (read: recruits) seem to dig it.
UCLA, naturally, has stuck with the tried and true, the rumor is that Adidas would love to use UCLA to show what they can do, but the Morgan Center has refused to stray -- the exceptions being some "special" jersey material that mostly makes the linemen look really fat and some stickers on the helmets. Morgan Center as usual have been laaaaame.
Now, word has come down that UCLA will be busting out an all-white, alternative ensemble for the game against Southern Cal. From Dan Guerrero's latest "blog":
There have been rampant rumors out there recently that our football team might be sporting a special look when they take the field for the USC game on Saturday evening. I can confirm that those rumors are indeed true. We will be unveiling a uniform that we have been working on with the adidas design team for several months. These new uniforms will provide us with an alternative to our existing road uniforms but will not replace them in perpetuity. That said, I’m not going to tell you everything in this blog – but look for hints the remainder of the week by liking UCLA Athletics on Facebook or following @UCLAAthletics on Twitter
What?
Let me get this straight: After refusing to do anything cool with the uniforms and sticking with tradition, UCLA is going to break tradition for the one game when flying your True Blue colors means more than anything else. Seriously? The one time when you want everyone wearing blue no matter what, UCLA is going with surrender-flag white?
Making this even more lame is the fact that UCLA and Southern Cal battled the NCAA for the right to have both teams wear their home jerseys for the cross-town rivalry. Remember the game a few years ago when Pete Carroll and Rick Neuheisel even conspired to burn time outs (or was it endure penalties?) as both teams wore their home colors in defiance of the NCAA. The NCAA eventually relented and allowed both teams to wear their home jerseys without any penalty.
Personally, I think the idea of breaking out some new uniforms is cool, it's creative, it's fun. I have no problem with it in theory. But why do it for the rivalry game? Why do it for the one game where, win or lose, we wear our blue with pride? Moreover, why do it for a game that won't end until well after midnight on the East Coast and isn't even on ABC or ESPN? Then, even if you're going to do it, why make it some surprise with little clues instead of having a big fashion show
Just another example of how Morgan Center is ridiculously out-of-touch and constantly behind, trying to play "catch up" in a weak, too-little, too-late "effort" that is embarrassing at best. Just more fuel on the fire for why we need wholesale regime change in Westwood.