A Week in Review

Is there such a thing as a beautiful, ugly win? If so, the Sun Devils have achieved just that in two consecutive seasons against Michigan State, the most recent coming this past Saturday. A true grind it out football game in East Lansing favored Arizona State, which won its first road game of the season against the then 18th ranked Spartans. The Sun Devils again gave up only 7 points, not yielding a single point until the 4th quarter. In a defensive game, ASU defended well enough to hold on just enough for its offense to get the job done. One thing that doesn’t need any defending, but deserves nothing but praise, were the uniforms.

The Sun Devils wore a white helmet/white jersey/gold pant uniform combination with a twist that had never been seen before: a gold facemask. The gold facemask is the latest facemask color to be worn, and the first new color facemask to be introduced since the copper chrome facemask debuted with the Desert Fuel uniform against Notre Dame in 2014.

I often wondered what a gold facemask would look like on the field, and my imagination never gave it much of a chance to look good. Boy, oh boy was my imagination wrong. The gold facemask, matched with the large gold pitchfork decal and gold pants, was an exceptionally sharp look and exquisite, yes exquisite, piece of branding. That was undeniably Arizona State on that field, yet it was fresh and innovative. I’m always partial to the gold helmet/white jersey/maroon pant classic. However, what the Devils wore this last weekend may be my favorite road uniform of all time. I can’t pass along enough kudos to ASU Football Equipment Manager Jerry Neilly and his staff.

White Helmet/White Jersey/Gold Pants: A+

The Week to Come

Uniform

Colorado has looked inconsistent thus far this season, sometimes even within the same game. It has been back and forth between the Sun Devils and the Buffalos in recent years, so it will be very interesting to see what happens when the Sun Devils host CU this Saturday.

Last year, the Sun Devils wore a maroon helmet/white jersey/maroon pant uniform combination when they traveled to Boulder to take on Colorado. The year prior, they wore the incredible Pat Tillman inspired Brotherhood uniforms at home. For the 2019 game between these two teams, the Sun Devils will wear a gold helmet/black jersey/gold pant uniform combination for the first time ever. The heathered black jersey features a sublimated Arizona state flag in representing the sunset and the star across the chest in lieu of identifying text which is now on the back of the jersey. The gold player numbers on the uniforms are outlined in maroon on both the front and back of the jersey, as are the TV numbers on the sleeves.

The nameplate on the back of the jersey utilizes the gold Sun Devil Bold font and above the nameplate is a small, gold “ASU” outlined in maroon. On the front of the jersey, near the left shoulder, is a gold adidas logo. Near the right shoulder is a maroon and gold Pac 12 shield, and though it is not pictured, there will be a white and gray “150” patch signifying the 150th season of college football as well. Last, but not least, at the base of the the collar is the black PT*42 shield in honor of ASU Football legend, Pat Tillman.

The gold pants have a small gold pitchfork with black trim near the right hip and a maroon adidas logo near the left hip. Running vertically along the side of the left thigh is maroon “Sun Devils” in Sun Devil Bold font. There is paneling on the pants that features the darker tonal gold, not only providing further dimension to the uniform as a whole but also serving a purpose in providing a greater range of motion.

Helmet

As has been well documented, last week’s white helmet featured a never-before-seen facemask when the gold grill was debuted. This week they will wear black pitchfork decals on the gold helmet for the first time. That means even though the Sun Devils are limited to only gold and white helmets this year, Jerry Neilly and his fantastic crew are getting incredibly creative and the results have been sharp. The helmet decals are black standard sized pitchforks with chrome gold trim and a thin maroon border. It will feature a maroon facemask, and the front bumpers will be both 2D and 3D with a gold base and maroon font that reads PT*42, also honoring the legendary Sun Devil, Pat Tillman.

The maroon decals on the back of the helmet include the Pac 12 shield, the outline of the state of Arizona with a small pitchfork over Tempe, and even the text in the Warning label. The decals on the back of the helmet are rounded out by small Sparky decals on either side of the helmet’s rear bumper.

Cleats & Socks

For the first time this season, ASU will wear black cleats. The two sets of cleats pictured below feature the adidas Adi-Zero cleats on the top row and adidas Freaks on the bottom. The Adi-Zeroes are typically worn by speed position players (wide receivers and defensive backs), while the Freaks are typically worn by heavier players (linebackers and linemen).

Beginning with the top row, the Adi-Zero on the left features a black base and black sole, a black tongue, black laces, three white adidas stripes near the toe on the outside of the shoe, and a prominent white adidas logo on the instep near the arch. The Adi-Zero in the middle is a standard low-top Adi-Zero Primeknit. It boasts all the same basic features but has some great accents near the toe. The pair on the far right is a mid-top Adi-Zero Primeknit and has all the same features as Primknit low, but the black opening rises higher up on the ankle.

The pairs of adidas Freaks on the left and in the middle also feature a black base and sole, with three white adidas stripes near the ankle on the outside of the shoes and three maroon adidas stripes near the arch on the instep. They both also have a black tongue and black laces. The Freak low-top is on the far left and Freak mid-top is in the middle, rising higher up the ankle. The pair of cleats second to the right is the Freak Ultra Primeknit. The black cleat also has a three white adidas stripes near the ankle on the outside of the shoe and has a textured black pattern on the inside of the shoe. The Freak Torsion on the far right has a black base and sole. It also has three white adidas stripes on the outside of the shoe. There is a very large white adidas logo on the inside of the shoe. The tongue and large shoelaces are both black, and a small, blacks adidas “Freak” logo can be found on the white heel loop.

Along with the black cleats, the Sun Devils will also be wearing black socks.

Gloves

The Sun Devils will wear black gloves this week, and as with the cleats, there are different gloves for different positions. The gloves on the top are Adi-Zeros which are typically worn by speed position players like wide receivers and defensive backs. It has been trendy across football that when the palms of gloves are placed together, the two hands create a complete image. This year’s edition of Adi-Zero gloves strays away from that trend. Each glove features a maroon pitchfork with gold trim overlaying a tonal black and gray state flag pattern on the palm of each glove. They also have a white adidas logo on the back of the hand and gold accents on the knuckles and the wrist-wrap.

The gloves in the middle are adidas Freaks, worn by larger skill position players such as linebackers and tight ends. The adidas Freak gloves have a pattern of small, repeating adidas logos that are maroon in color on the black palm, along with a large black adidas logo outlined in gold that is completed when the palms are placed together. The adidas Freaks also have a white adidas logo on the back of the hand and gold accents on the knuckles and the wrist-wrap. Finally, for linemen, the gloves on the bottom are adidas Freak-Max, which boast extra padding on the heel of the palm meant to withstand all of the contact that linemen endure throughout the course of a game. They are plain black on the palm and along with a gold adidas logo on the back of the hand, they also a have a gold accent on the wrist-wrap and maroon accents. on the knuckles.

Reaction

This is the ninth season that the Sun Devils have had these color options available to them, yet this is the first time this color combination has ever been seen. There are however a few reasons for that. First, there were many other options to explore along with the copper age which did not make this gold/black/gold combination seem like something that needed to be done right away. Second, it’s long been rumored that Todd Graham did not want anything other than standard maroon pitchforks or Sparky on the gold helmets, an idea which was evidenced by the fact that an alternate decal combination was finally used on gold helmets in his first season away from the team. Third, never since 2011 was the equipment staff faced with the use of only two helmet colors.

The challenge now is how to be creative with the options that they have available to them. Maroon forks on a gold helmet would not match well with a black jersey, but with the black fork option available, it makes it work. Initially seeing this, I am very high on it and kind of disappointed it hasn’t been worn in the past, but as with all new uniform combinations, I will wait to see how it looks on the field with the entire team wearing it before making my final judgment.

What Color Traveling ASU Fans Should Wear: Gold

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