It’s been a very eventful offseason for UCF Football. The athletics department made an absurd amount of money from donations. The team turned down a scheduling offer from Florida that it never actually received. Danny White went after a national media member on Twitter (and pretty much won.)
Darriel Mack broke his ankle and flung an already difficult quarterback situation even further into question. And after losing two starting-caliber quarterbacks and a big chunk of the defense, UCF actually got real respect in the Coaches Poll.
It’s been a weird few months.
But now football season is right around the corner, with the Knights set to open the season at home against FAMU in just a couple weeks. So it’s time to focus on the most important aspect of the coming year: uniforms.
UCF has truly blessed its fans and the college football world with some great uniform combos and designs over the last few years. So let’s get into the Knight Sports Now 2019 Uniform Wish List. These are the uniforms/combos/decals that we would most like to see this year.
- New Colors for Facemasks
UCF has done some awesome stuff since redesigning in 2016. By my count, the Knights have now worn 21 helmet designs over the past three years. That’s insane. That’s like, Oregon-level insane.
But each and every one of those helmets has had something in common: black facemasks. I would love to see UCF whip out some new colors in 2019. Plenty of schools do this game-to-game and a team as creative as this one should be no exception.
The team’s matte white helmet with the chrome gold UCF decal and sword stripe is a work of art. But imagine if you add in a chrome gold facemask as well. Tell me you don’t want to see that helmet. You do. If you just said you don’t, then you’re lying because you’re upset you didn’t think of it before me.
There are just so many options. A white facemask for a whiteout game, or even silver to go with the pewter helmets. Why not even throw a “Canaveral blue” facemask onto the space uniforms? The team needs this. The fans need this. I need this.
- Wear the Gold Helmets More
Yes, this is totally a personal preference but first off, it’s my wish list, and second, hear me out. Over the last two years, UCF has played 26 games. The team has donned the gold helmets just five times. And the Knights’ College GameDay appearance against Cincinnati this past season was the first time the team had worn the gold helmets at home since November 2016.
All 130 freaking FBS teams have an excuse to wear a white helmet. Pretty much all of them can get away with a black helmet too. But gold? That’s UCF’s color. So why is the team so determined to marginalize it?
Trust me, I’m fine with no more gold jerseys (I actually would’ve been fine with this at any point over the last 15 years but whatever) and even the gold pants the team broke out last year were, uh, not the best.
But those gold helmets are gorgeous. And I want to see them at home more than once every two years. Sue me.
- Put the Pegasus on a Helmet
If anyone reading this has any pull with UCF at all, I am begging you to make this happen. Pleading. I’ll cry too if you think that would help.
While most official school logos and seals are some crude drawing from the 19th century, UCF has a truly gorgeous one. The Pegasus, which luckily trends more towards abstract than cartoony, is a timeless logo that trumps basically any other academic seal in the country.
And it’s finally getting used in athletics. The Pegasus is now featured on the sleeve of most football jerseys and the baseball team broke out some fantastic uniforms featuring the logo this past season.
But that’s not enough. I want it on a helmet for the whole world to see. I’m thinking black with a shiny gold Pegasus on one side, but really I’ll take any version.
How many schools out there have the power to put their academic logo on a helmet and make it look good? And there is precedent. The football team sported a Pegasus decal in the early 80’s. Use it for a throwback game if you want but please, please do it.
- Wear the combo that got this all started
It was all the way back in May 2016 when UCF first revealed its new look. I still remember exactly where I was when I first saw them. I was driving somewhere and got a text from my mom. I glanced down, saw the words “new UCF uniforms” and got a quick glimpse of black and silver and gold in the photo she had texted me.
I almost crashed.
I sped up quickly to have time at a red light to get a real look at the photo. Sleek black uniforms with oversized numbers. A silver helmet with a menacing black sword shooting down the middle. I was looking at the first great uniforms in UCF history.
And guess what? We’ve never actually seen that look on the field. The Knights got this all started by releasing a photo of a pewter/black/black combo. That render is still circulated fairly often but man, I would love to see it in a game. I’m not sure how likely this is since UCF all but cut pewter out of its rotation this past season, but for the people like me who saw that photo as a change in UCF history, a moment of realization that this program was finally going to embrace what it could become, we deserve to see that combo.
Oh, and if you’re heavily judging my overreaction to seeing a picture of a uniform, then I really can’t blame you. I have problems. I admit it.
- Please, please, please stop wearing the black alternate uniforms more than once
So basically no one is going to agree with me on this, but here we go. For the USF game in 2017, UCF unveiled a brand-new black uniform. With a white collar and sleeve trim, gold numbers and a Knightro head on the sleeves, many fans embraced the new look. And the team did too, dressing the players in those jerseys for publicity events and hanging them from lockers for Scott Van Pelt appearances.
But there’s just one problem. These black jerseys are worse than the ones the team already had. They’re busier, have more clashing colors, have smaller less dominant numbers and just don’t gel with the rest of the Knights’ uniform set very much.
They’ve only looked good when paired with a white helmet and white pants, and as far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be worn more than once a year and with that combo. But this past season, the Knights broke them out again to pair with black helmets and gold pants. And guess what? It was awful!
I get having variety, but I don’t get introducing a black jersey that’s worse than the one you already have and then emphasizing that new jersey over the old one.
That being said, the team also has a white version of this jersey and I love it. I don’t know why. But they should wear that one a lot because it’s great.
Disagree with my wish list? I don’t really care because I’m right and you’re wrong. But if you feel that strongly about it, you can tweet your frustrations at me at @ByCasimmons.
