The Buckeyes are wearing Nike's Pro Combat Series for the Michigan game, with nine other schools taking part in the alternate jersey series this season.
We'll all know much more on Sept. 1.
That's when Nike will officially unveil the 10 Pro Combat uniforms for the football teams, including Ohio State, wearing the alternate jerseys for one game this season. Ohio State obviously realizes that everything involving jersey adjustments can be a delicate situation when it comes to Ohio State fans. So the Buckeyes made the choice to let out some information Wednesday and announce that they'll be wearing the uniforms against Michigan for the second straight year.
Jeff Svoboda from Buckeye Sports Bulletin is reporting that the uniforms will be a more traditional look than a year ago, a throwback to an early '40s look with red helmets and gray pants.
Nike will officially unveil the rest at an event on Sept. 1 in New York City, when the company will reveal the design and back stories for the Combat Series to be worn by Ohio State, Alabama, Boise State, Florida, Miami, Oregon State, Pittsburgh, TCU, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Last year, we got a fashion show at Ohio State from former Buckeye Raymont Harris, but Nike is stepping up the hype this year.
Ohio State in white helmets and alternate unis at Michigan a year ago. Is that how the Buckeyes should look when fans remember 2009?These aren't rising schools seeking attention any way they can get it. That list includes six of the top seven teams in the preseason coaches poll, every team but Texas. And while many fans may favor tradition, the mix-and-match uniforms of Oregon, with an almost unlimited number of possibilities, won an ESPN poll among players for the best uniforms in the nation.
So now that the initial shock of introducing a new wrinkle to the Michigan game has worn off, do you like this idea? Or is any change to the Ohio State-Michigan game something to resist?
My guess is that fans would take little issue with an alternate jersey once a year if it was worn in any other game. But Michigan is the benchmark of any Ohio State season, the game that will be referenced more than any other in future years. I'll admit it's a bit odd to me to look at photos from last year's game in Ann Arbor and see the Buckeyes in those uniforms that were a takeoff of the 1954 look.
It seems to me that part of the anticipation of the Ohio State-Michigan game is that, played at the end of the season with such an emphasis, it is typically a good indication of what those two teams are really about in a given season. How much have they improved? How do they handle pressure? What are the things they really rely on offensively and defensively when it matters?
And a small part of who you are is how you look. When one team is wearing something out of the norm for that game, no matter how cool it may be, it still doesn't show exactly what that team was all about that season.
Throw in the continued possibility of Ohio State and Michigan moving away from the end of the regular season, as we first wrote about two weeks ago, and I can understand if some traditionalists are growing a little wary about what's to come.
Do what do you think? Like the idea of another year of new uniforms for the Michigan game, hate it or are some of us making too much of what the Buckeyes wear?