Some of you guys are really dating yourselves here. We absolutely should be on board with an alternative design one game a year.
1. They're free, Nike does it for publicity. Let Nike design a couple picks, have the students vote on the best each year. Wear it for a non-homecoming league home game. Sell them pregame at the Co-op that week, special deal.
2. It creates a buzz around the program. You can debate the level of buzz, but its there, especially if you get the students involved in the selection. Without doing anything besides wearing a different uniform (similar to a white out or blue out), you create increased energy before and during the game for the fans and media.
3. It gets the players fired up too. Again, even if it's minimal, when you're putting on the jerseys in the locker room at the Rent and talking about going out there and destroying Louisville on a Friday night in mid-November, it's an extra element to that fire because it's different, it's special. Why on earth would you not be looking for that little edge?
4. Recruits do like it. Of course they don't make their decisions based on one uniform a year, I don't think anyone is arguing that. But it does create a buzz about the program, especially for local kids seeing it in the papers as they come through high school. For better or worse, we have a reputation as a program of being pretty bland, whether it be playing style, location in East Hartford, relative youth as a big program, whatever. This helps combat that perception. It also shows recruits that we get it, that we want our players to have the best of everything and take care of them, and bottom line, it's just cool.