Spring is here, and so is football–at least in a limited capacity. The NFL Draft and colleges' spring games have afforded fans across the country with the illusion that September is only one month away. In that spirit, today will be spent examining some Adidas advertising by way of Uniwatch for college football. The ads feature Adidas' new super-light 'adizero 5 Star' football cleat, as well as their Tech-Fit uniform template.
Now before we really get into things, I'd like to offer this disclaimer: I don't intend to turn this into a smear campaign against Adidas. I've said it in the past that The Three Stripes seem to be behind the ball a bit when it comes to football, particularly when compared to Nike, and the meteoric rise of UnderArmour. Now what does 'behind-the-ball' really mean? In my eyes it means a failure to consistently put out products that are as good–if not better than your competitors. And in my eyes, Adidas just hasn't done that. It doesn't mean they everything they put out is absolute shit; they've done some great work, but it's about doing it across the board.
The first thing that I noticed was the cut of these new Tech-Fit jerseys. Likely a response to Nike's own "shrink wrap fitted" uniforms, Adidas has finally made the switch to uniforms that provide a more compact, streamlined fit. Overall, I'd say it's definitely a positive for Adidas; some of these look really good. The Tech-Fit jerseys give the uniforms just an overall cleaner look. Aside from the fit, the other things I noticed right away were the sleeves–or lack thereof and the unusual collar design. The sleeve-above-the-arm look is popular among skill players and linemen, and I wonder if Adidas took that into consideration when designing the uniforms. On some, truncated sleeves will look fine, but I doubt it will look as good at other positions like quarterback. Although the collar looks unusual, particularly when highlighted by contrasting trim like on Indiana's uniforms, you don't really notice it on uniforms like Kansas where it's not made obvious. Even though it doesn't look that great, this is probably an instance of function over form; the new collars look like they make sense for the way a player's shoulder pads fit under the jersey and around the neck.
As for the uniforms themselves, the Tech-fit template seems to be the only cosmetic change for most, like Tennessee, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Wisconsin, whose uniforms remain unchanged otherwise. Louisville, who sees significant change in their uniforms, isn't a huge improvement–if at all. Their uniforms attempt something I'll talk about frequently: the attempt to marry the new with the old–implementing modern elements in a traditional style or setting. Sometimes, the results can be great, as in the case of the Vancouver Canucks, slightly updating a traditional logo and uniform with a modern look. Unfortunately, this combination of tradition and innovation more often than not results with rather mediocre designs.
Louisville's uniforms aren't horrendous, they're really not that bad; they just don't seem improve upon the previous incarnation–and that's the problem. I realize that black is one of their colors, but its use seems too heavy to me; it weighs down the design. It reminds me just a little too much of this, especially the heavy shadow on the numbers. Probably would have looked good in the mid to late 90's. The other thing that bothers me is wordmark across the chest, "Louisville," is too big to fit above the numbers as an accent like this, but it seems a little too small if they were going for something more prominent like this. It looks like its just sort of floating somewhere in between.
The other two major issues I noticed came from FIU and NC State. It could simply be a product of the lighting or photo processing but FIU's helmets don't seem to quite match their uniforms, and if you're going to go with the monochrome look, you'd better get that right. In general, I'm not really a huge fan of monochrome look, and for NC State in particular, it just makes them look like a high school team. I would go with white pants, or at the very least some sort of pants striping to break up the solid color a bit. And another thing, ditch the black. Stanford did, and now they have one of the sharpest uniforms in college football.
Finally, we'll examine an instance of almost-perfect: Indiana. While I can't speak for their performance on the field, Adidas' offering for IU is a good one, and an improvement over last year. They've dropped the contrasting paneling on the pants in favor of a more traditional double stripe, which adds some continuity to the uniform. They've also toned down the HOOSIERS block script across the chest, which is an improvement over last year, which looked cluttered with the large lettering, shoulder stripes and collar trim. Can't quite tell from the ad, but hopefully they've gotten rid of those ridiculous PowerWeb pants too. PowerWeb, for those less-informed, is a series of TPU bands implemented onto the surface of a uniform to, as Adidas claims, 'augment and support' the muscles and movements of the athlete, maybe something like kinesio tape. At any rate, it looks awful. My only real gripe with this uniform is the collar trim: it just stains the traditional look of the uniform, and creates an odd-looking neckline. Other than that, this uniform nails it, and is a nice improvement over their ho-hum uniforms of the past.
The Tech-Fit template is definitely a move in the right direction for Adidas, and it will be interesting to see just how comprehensive this change is for the schools they outfit. Will it just be these flagship schools–or will smaller schools be updated as well? For the layman the changes may pass by unnoticed, but with the popularity of Nike's Pro-Combat line, it's time for Adidas to step up to the plate.
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