POLL: Football Uniforms... Where Do You Stand?
- Thread starter jc4cy
- Start date
Loses points for wearing a gold jersey, but this is my second favorite logo behind the leaning Cy. That dude could lean on anything and look cool!
My preference for ISU would be to mirror the OKSt model with the alts and jersey/pant striping.
I just hope like hell we don't do what the Minny Yellow Rodents are doing:
https://hyprrelite.com/
There simplistic jerseys/pants are awful.
Hmm... I'm afraid that may be the EXACT route we're going. The word "PROCESS" will be probably be plastered all over the helmet, ha ha!
I meant you're not helping to ease the fears of the people who hate the idea of a black uniform.
Some of them probably just had minor strokes looking at your images.
I personally don't have any problem with it. I'd much rather they do black and red than black and JUST yellow though.
I truly don't think we'll ever wear just black and gold. That wouldn't go over well with anyone. Black with cardinal and gold included has nothing to do with the TOE.
Personally I say **** em. We can wear whatever we want.
Always loved those logos. I have some cups that my brother got while he was at ISU in the 80s that had basketball, football, and wrestling Cy on them. All of those logos deserve to be featured for their respective sports. They were well designed and hold a place in a lot of ISU fans hearts.
Land Shark is correct in that the '80s Cyclone first originated with the football team and Roger Gade, who worked for Iowa State for nearly two decades, (well after Criner left) and remains a lifetime member of the Cyclone Letterwinners Club.
That era was much more casual with logo usage than today. There were many different logos floating around, but only one logo had both the school name and nickname, hence the '80s Cyclone was put in use as the school logo for about a decade. Some of it made its way over to the basketball program. Just look at the jacket Hornacek is holding here:
In some of my previous stories, I chose to frame it as the Orr Cyclone, given that Johnny Orr was the most prominent face of ISU athletics at that time, and the Cyclone logo was the most prominent school logo at that time. While Johnny did mostly use Cy, it was the only Cyclone logo during Johnny's time at Iowa State. This cannot be disputed.
Sure, the football team was mediocre, aligning completely with ISU's historical record, but as Pollard explained earlier this year regarding the bugle logo, game results (aka Texas) don't have any bearing on the logo quality.
You know what else happened during the decade of the 1980s Cyclone?
Johnny Orr and Barry Stevens originated Hilton Magic
The 1987 wrestling team won the national championship
The 1989 cross country team won the national championship
Even with all of that wonderful history, the 1980s Cyclone is undeniably dated. Thus a forum member (IG: Friendan.Design) redesigned the entire Cyclone to be less stilted and modern. It's the best of both worlds--it retains the iconic concept of the 1980s logo and successes without explicitly being attached to Criner.
When I think of the 1980s, I think of Hilton Magic and national championships.
Embrace Heritage.
Embrace the Orr Cyclone.
I'm pretty sure I referred to it as the Orr Cyclone because of your posts, so that explains it. I didn't know Johnny disliked it though. No matter, it is still defining of that era of Cyclone sports and as you said, ISU athletes won titles under it.
To me it feels like a Classic Big 8 style logo. Something you could look at and immediately make the connection to the ISU Cyclones. The bird in a blender was an attempt on a "modern" take, but it was overly complicated and added blue, which is pretty much universally hated now.
Minny has had "simple" jersey style for a long time though. They've embraced the "Old School Big Ten" style like Penn State.
Outside of a few temporary but obvious mistakes...
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Minnesota uniforms have almost always been pretty simple in style.
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The new Nike updates are just adding some flash.
Always find it interesting how few people wore team gear in the 80s/90s. You go to a game now, and everyone is just a couple tweaks from being the mascot. It certainly looks better on TV nowadays. I was young, and maybe it's the nostalgia, but sports were much more casual back then.
I've noticed that as well. Highlights from the Johnny Orr era and there are people in pink and blue and green sweatshirts sitting in the expensive seats.
Athletic apparel was just not nearly as popular or as widely available back then.
I graduated high school in 97 and even then, school apparel was not nearly as common or available. Now every high school has entire wardrobes of school gear. My elementary school kids have as much Ankeny Centenial gear as I had school gear when I was in high school. And I was on multiple teams and in band.
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I'm pretty sure I referred to it as the Orr Cyclone because of your posts, so that explains it. I didn't know Johnny disliked it though. No matter, it is still defining of that era of Cyclone sports and as you said, ISU athletes won titles under it.
To me it feels like a Classic Big 8 style logo. Something you could look at and immediately make the connection to the ISU Cyclones. The bird in a blender was an attempt on a "modern" take, but it was overly complicated and added blue, which is pretty much universally hated now.
It wouldn't surprise me if Orr hated that logo because it was introduced shortly after Criner was hired. Associating this logo with anyone besides Criner seems very wrong to me.
It should be noted that the singlets the wrestling team wore as national champions in 1987 and the cross country team wore in 1989 and 1994 did not have this logo present like they do today.
As an athlete in the period, I don't think I had one department issued shirt, or sweats with that logo on it in 4 years.
Attachments
Like anything else, at some point someone realized they could sell team shirts and make money, a lot of money.
I don't think Branding was nearly as big a deal back before the 2000s as it is now. The big schools had their fanbase established and could print money as well as t-shirts, but anyone below that was fewer and far between for apparel.
I remember seeing Iowa stuff more of course, because they had more people to sell to, but schools like ISU didn't spend nearly as much on marketing and apparel as they do now.
I think it's interesting how many times ISU switched logos and helmets in the 70s and 80s. They tried a lot of stuff, but didn't stick with anything and didn't commit to specific apparel enough to make it last.
To be clear- I have zero issue with this version and it is 100x better than the bugle. Just no Iowa State script and we are fine
