Husker Helmets and Alternate Uniforms: Why Mess With Perfection?

So Deeyung Entertainment went and designed some new helmets for many of the NCAA football teams. Some actually look pretty cool, but how does the Husker’s alternate helmet look? What exactly is all the hoopla about changing the teams helmets and uniforms? Does it add more majesty to the game? Does it bring in more and better recruits and commitments? And does it help the team win?

Deeyung Entertainment Husker helmet adaptation

Huskers don;t have much of a history using alternative helmets and uniforms. The Huskers athletic apparel is Adidas and they’re just starting to get more pizzazz like Nike does. But how do you spruce up a historic Husker uniform?

We had the all Red uniforms with black helmets for the Wisconsin game in 2012. We had the Black jerseys with white numbers, white pants, and white helmet with a black stripe on it (at least the N was red) that we wore against UCLA in 2013, and the uniforms didn’t help the score any. Then we had the all red uniforms with red helmets in 2014 that had some kind of metallic look depending on how the light hit it when the Huskers played Illinois. You couldn’t even see the numbers on the television screen to tell which player was which. At least we won that game.

Husker alternate uniform courtesy of Adidas

I think my favorite though was the throwback uniforms the Huskers wore against Louisiana-Lafayette in 2009 celebrating the 300 consecutive sellout dating back to the uniforms the players wore back in 1962. The white helmets with the black numbers instead of the traditional “N” to go with the red jerseys with curly cue numbers on them and the white pants, now those were some very cool uniforms.  Oh yeah, the Huskers won that game too!

So do the flashy uniforms help bring in top ranked recruiting classes? For the 3 consecutive years that the Huskers have worn alternate uniforms, the recruiting classes were ranked 25th, 17th, and 32nd so I would say the alternate uniforms did nothing to help Husker recruiting.

What about other top teams, did the alternate uniforms help them?  Oregon wasn’t the first team to use the alternate uniforms but it was Oregon who started the craze back in 1999, of course it helped having the co-founder of Nike to have coached track at Oregon, Bill Bowerman. In fact, Oregon has over 380 alternate uniform styles to choose from. The Rivals data base only goes back to 2002 so I couldn’t quite go back to 1999, but since 2002, Oregon has an average ranking of 24th nationally in recruiting classes.

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Next, I looked at Alabama. Compared to Oregon, Alabama has at least 18 alternate versions in their history, and they are a Nike school too. So just to keep the comparison fair, Alabama’s average recruiting class rankings since 2002 is 11th.  Considering Oregon has many more uniform choices than Alabama and Alabama’s average ranking is higher than, i think it is a safe bet so say that the uniform is incidental compared to the fact the recruits want to play for teams who are winning.

Oregon alternate uniforms from Sportslogos.net

So why go to all that trouble in $pending money for alternative uniforms if they don’t help you win, and they don’t help you recruit top classes consistently? Is it for the current players and the fans? I can only speculate but I would have to say YE$ to both. It is really a ploy by the coaches and the universities to get the players and fans excited about the upcoming game, basically to get more butts in the $eat$. It must work because teams keep doing it every year.

So how about this new Husker helmet design by Deeyung Entertainment?  Do you like it?  Personally, I don’t care for it. I guess I am an old school tradition sort of guy and want to just stick with the traditional helmet the Huskers always wear.

Phil Sears-USA TODAY Sports

I don’t mind paying homage to the past like we did in 2009, but if Nebraska is going to use alternate uniforms for a game each season, can we please find something that doesn’t embarrass the university like the ones wore during the Wisconsin and Illinois games (I didn’t mind the uniform worn during the UCLA game). But really, why mess with perfection? Go Big Red!