Portfolio NCAA Footy: An Alternate History

[misnomer]

You wake up on a seemingly normal Wednesday morning. Little do you know that you've been transported to another world. A world where Australian football is not solely Australia's game. In a universe not so far from this one, immigrants from Australia brought their game across the Pacific to California... and us Americans fell in love. We abandoned the gridiron game and adopted the Victorian rules as our own. In 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played the first inter-collegiate match, and the rest, as they say, was history.

I have been coming up with jumper concepts for NCAA teams for a few months now and wanted to share them here. I hope you enjoy!

 

[misnomer]

ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE

The jerseys of the Crimson Tide are some of the most recognizable in all of college football. I decided to continue the tradition of simplicity and go with a plain jumper design with the "A" emblazoned on the front. In this universe, the jumper design has gone almost unchanged in 60 years. The crimson jumper would be worn for home games and the white when playing away. White shorts would be worn for all matches.

ROLL TIDE!

Home


Away

Note: For the uninitiated, the "SEC" is the logo of the Southeastern Conference. Each jumper will have the logo of the conference that team is in on the front and back. If a jersey does not have a conference logo, it means one of two things: the school is an FBS Independent or I forgot.

 

[misnomer]

Ohio State Buckeyes

The Buckeyes have a set of iconic threads. However, rather than base the jumper off of their current uniforms, I decided to look back to the history books to create this kit, basing it off of the throwback jerseys worn by Ohio State in 2016 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their first Big Ten championship. Much like the somewhat static jumper designs of the oldest AFL clubs (i.e. Melbourne, Carlton, Essendon, etc.) in this universe, the Buckeyes' jumper has seldom changed in over a century. I also took inspiration from the Ohio State fight song, "Buckeye Battle Cry" where the team is referred to as "Men of the Scarlet and Gray."

O-H-I-O

Home


Away


Next up will be Ohio State's arch-rival: the Michigan Wolverines. I might be spoiling it a little bit, but I think fans of Port Adelaide will like their designs.

 

[misnomer]

Michigan Wolverines

Yet another team that hasn't changed their look much in the last 80+ years are the Michigan Wolverines. The most recognizable feature of their uniforms aren't the jerseys, but the helmets. The winged helmet has been a common feature of all Michigan football uniforms since 1938. I attempted to replicate the winged design, but I just couldn't find a way to do it that really fit the jumper. After much experimentation, I decided that the Port Adelaide Prison Bar jumper design would be the best way to go. I felt it replicated the helmet stripes well and the slightly larger gap in the center of the bars creates the effect of two "M" shapes. This was also the first set I designed with an alternate uniform.

Go Blue!

HOME


AWAY


ALTERNATE

 

[chibimatty]

How does the Buckeyes kit go with red shorts for home and white for away? Or even red shorts for both?

 

[misnomer]

How does the Buckeyes kit go with red shorts for home and white for away? Or even red shorts for both?

I haven’t tested that, but I’ll see how it looks. I went with grey because the football team wears grey pants. Something important to note is that in most North American sports, shorts color is not factored in when looking at color clashes, the only thing that matters is jersey color.

 

[misnomer]

Tennessee Volunteers

Okay, I couldn't wait any longer to post the jumpers of my favorite school that I don't attend. I decided to use a Port Adelaide/South Melbourne design for Tennessee. Get it! Because Vols starts with a "V"... I'll see myself out. I also added an alternate kit based off of the "dark mode" uniforms they wear for the home game closest to Halloween. While I am definatley a little biased due to me being a Vols fan, these are probably the coolest jumpers I've come up with so far.

Home


Away


Alternate


Up next will be the jumpers of "Uniform University": the Oregon Ducks

 

[magpienato]

Really loving this portfolio so far and love seeing my template being used. I really like the Wolverines and Volunteers kits so far, they're simple in design but represent the teams well.

 

[misnomer]

Really loving this portfolio so far and love seeing my template being used. I really like the Wolverines and Volunteers kits so far, they're simple in design but represent the teams well.

Thanks, dude! That means a lot! If you have any requests/ideas, let me know!

 

[misnomer]

Oregon Ducks

Oregon may not be the most successful team on the field, but if there was a national championship for jerseys, the Ducks would win every single year. Being a 90 minute drive from Nike HQ has its perks and one of those is having every possible uniform combination a school could ask for. I designed not 1, not 2, but FOUR different kits for the Ducks to choose from. I went with the wings due to Oregon's actual jerseys having many wing/feather designs on them. However, I did decide to go monochrome with the "Nightmare Green" kit. Another thing I wanted to emphasize is the design's ability to be "plug-and-play." The only parts of the set that would be totally unique to a specific kit would be the nightmare green shorts and socks.

GO DUCKS!

HOME


AWAY


ALT 1

ALT 2 (Nightmare Green)

 

[chibimatty]

I would never have thought of a "V for Vols" or a prison bars for Michigan, but it's such a brilliantly obvious idea when I look at it now, well played. Now I'm just wondering what other inventive stuff you come up with.

I have a picture in my head of the Syracuse Orange, are you doing them at all?

 

[misnomer]

I would never have thought of a "V for Vols" or a prison bars for Michigan, but it's such a brilliantly obvious idea when I look at it now, well played. Now I'm just wondering what other inventive stuff you come up with.

I have a picture in my head of the Syracuse Orange, are you doing them at all?

Thank you so much for your kind words! It’s hard to get people who haven’t even heard of footy to understand my designs, so it means a lot to get the Aussie seal of approval!

The next four sets will be Auburn, LSU, Clemson, and South Carolina, 3/4 of which are ready to go. After those I’ll get on Syracuse, but I want to hear what you’re thinking for the Orange!

 

[chibimatty]

The next four sets will be Auburn, LSU, Clemson, and South Carolina, 3/4 of which are ready to go. After those I’ll get on Syracuse, but I want to hear what you’re thinking for the Orange!

I was thinking of how the tricolour side panels on their basketball uniforms remind me of hooped guernseys like the Adelaide Crows or the Western Bulldogs.

I haven’t tested that, but I’ll see how it looks. I went with grey because the football team wears grey pants. Something important to note is that in most North American sports, shorts color is not factored in when looking at color clashes, the only thing that matters is jersey color.

Yeah, there's a similarity in Aussie Rules where by the home team wears their standard colour (usually dark) shorts and the away team wears white shorts. Not always, but was a tradition during the days of black and white televisions especially

 

[misnomer]

I was thinking of how the tricolour side panels on their basketball uniforms remind me of hooped guernseys like the Adelaide Crows or the Western Bulldogs.

Ohhhhhh baby! Now we’re cooking with gas! I never even thought of that!

 

[misnomer]

LSU Tigers

The uniforms of the Tigers are a bit of an oddity in the college football world. Rather than wearing their dark uniforms at home, they wear white jerseys for almost every game, home or away. The purple jumper is almost a "just in case" at this point. I based the design off of the shoulder stripes on their football jerseys.

GEAUX TIGERS!

White


Purple


Up next will be another one of the four Power Five Tigers, Auburn... or are they the War Eagles...

 

[misnomer]

Auburn Tigers

The second of three teams in the SEC named for this specific big cat, Auburn has maybe the most "realistic" color scheme of any team I can think of called the Tigers (Richmond, I think you're swell, but tigers are very clearly orange and black). I based their design off of the jerseys worn by Auburn's football team in the 1930s and 40s. I also made the decision to add an orange jumper based on no other reason than I thought it would look cool. IRL, Auburn has not worn an orange jersey on the football field in 40+ years and have not shown any signs of breaking that streak any time soon.

WAR EAGLE... whatever that means.

HOME

AWAY

ALTERNATE

Up next will be the last of the three most famous tigers, and by far the most successful in modern times, Clemson!

 

[magpienato]

Here was a jumper for a team I made a number of years ago now for one of our competitions called the Wisconsin Wild. Was pretty much directly inspired by the Badgers team there. Feel like this sort of design would be cool for Wisconsin Badgers team if you end up making one for them.
I think you'd really enjoy the CANAM competition we run every year, basically merges AFL uniforms with US Sports.

 

[royboy2]

Penn State?

 

[misnomer]

Here was a jumper for a team I made a number of years ago now for one of our competitions called the Wisconsin Wild. Was pretty much directly inspired by the Badgers team there. Feel like this sort of design would be cool for Wisconsin Badgers team if you end up making one for them.
I think you'd really enjoy the CANAM competition we run every year, basically merges AFL uniforms with US Sports.
View attachment 1705097

That’s a beauty! I would love to hop into that competition when that rolls around! I am planning on doing an NFL x AFL portfolio in a little bit, so stay tuned for that.

I don’t think I ever explained why I’m doing college sports. If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m an American. College sports, specifically football, is the US equivalent to the AFL in terms of passion and tradition imo. Even for a medium sized engineering school like the one I go to, our ice hockey team is the pride and joy of the school (go River Hawks). I also wanted to do something that haven’t really been done before on this site as far as I know.

I am thrilled to hear about how much you all have liked this and am honored to have the Aussie seal of approval!

 

[magpienato]

That’s a beauty! I would love to hop into that competition when that rolls around! I am planning on doing an NFL x AFL portfolio in a little bit, so stay tuned for that.

I don’t think I ever explained why I’m doing college sports. If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m an American. College sports, specifically football, is the US equivalent to the AFL in terms of passion and tradition imo. Even for a medium sized engineering school like the one I go to, our ice hockey team is the pride and joy of the school (go River Hawks). I also wanted to do something that haven’t really been done before on this site as far as I know.

I am thrilled to hear about how much you all have liked this and am honored to have the Aussie seal of approval!

That's awesome, honestly it's always fascinated me the idea of school and sport being so intertwined in a community. I think the only thing quite like that down here is the Private School Leagues and they are religiously followed by the students of those kinds of schools so I guess that's on par with it.

I got into NFL around 2017, my Dad's friend moved from Wisconsin a number of years ago but I remember the first game I watched, Week 2 Vikings vs Packers in 2017. The Packers lost but I felt like I had to go for them at that point, plus the colours are Green and Gold so it felt right as an Aussie. But yeah NFL is actually pretty well followed down here, there are local teams here and there. Definitely not at the level of Basketball but I'm hoping somewhere down the track that NFL brings a game down here to really kick off the popularity.

But really liking what you're putting out, sure some might say some of the designs are simple, but I can tell you're thinking about it intentionally which is great. Once you develop those skills you can really bring to life some of those out-there ideas.

 

[misnomer]

That's awesome, honestly it's always fascinated me the idea of school and sport being so intertwined in a community. I think the only thing quite like that down here is the Private School Leagues and they are religiously followed by the students of those kinds of schools so I guess that's on par with it.

I got into NFL around 2017, my Dad's friend moved from Wisconsin a number of years ago but I remember the first game I watched, Week 2 Vikings vs Packers in 2017. The Packers lost but I felt like I had to go for them at that point, plus the colours are Green and Gold so it felt right as an Aussie. But yeah NFL is actually pretty well followed down here, there are local teams here and there. Definitely not at the level of Basketball but I'm hoping somewhere down the track that NFL brings a game down here to really kick off the popularity.

But really liking what you're putting out, sure some might say some of the designs are simple, but I can tell you're thinking about it intentionally which is great. Once you develop those skills you can really bring to life some of those out-there ideas.

I will say this, UMass Lowell has no where near the level of passion of the really big schools, especially the ones in the southeastern US. There's a great book called Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer. The author is a New York Times reporter who followed the fans of the Alabama football team for a whole season. It's a really great insight into just how hardcore some people take college athletics in the US. In Texas, college football is actually second fiddle to high school football... yes, high school. In the north (where I'm from) our fan energy is almost exclusivley directed towards pro teams unless you're in college or a bandwagonner.

This has been a great learning tool for me! I'm figuring out photoshop by trial and error and just trying to make designs that look good. To me, a jumper is a lot like a flag: it needs to be simple, but instantly recognizable. If you have any tips or ideas, please send them my way!

Also, if you want to see what college football looks like at its best, this is a really good one to watch: Alabama vs. Tennessee 2022.

 

[BigChippa52]

keen to see what you do, been looking into an AFL X American sports ideas, need templates tho, would love to help and put in input, with designs and ideas, some NFL AFL designs seem like dead ringers to me like rams X west coast

 

[Discrim]

I also wanted to do something that haven’t really been done before on this site as far as I know.

Hi there

 

[Fizzler]

keen to see what you do, been looking into an AFL X American sports ideas, need templates tho, would love to help and put in input, with designs and ideas, some NFL AFL designs seem like dead ringers to me like rams X west coast

Rams and Eagles have the funny parallel of switching from royal blue to navy, then going back to royal (in WC’s case it was to do with fan pressure rather than moving cities). Not sure if you were following footy around then (2017 into 2018) but it’s an interesting tidbit.

 

[BigChippa52]

Rams and Eagles have the funny parallel of switching from royal blue to navy, then going back to royal (in WC’s case it was to do with fan pressure rather than moving cities). Not sure if you were following footy around then (2017 into 2018) but it’s an interesting tidbit.

i followed footy back then, i remember these teams fit well because of that and the wings can be swapped for horns