The campus at UMass was abuzz today at football practice. It was media day, and the first uniforms the team will wear as a new member of the Mid-American Conference and a newly FBS team were modeled.
Maroon Jersey, White Pants, Black undershirt, Black Helmet
The uniform changes are more like tweaks, and refine the Adidas uniform into a clean, sharp presentation. Notably new are the undersleeves and helmet.
Right Arm Graphics
The right arm features the “still-current-but formerly on the helmet-logo.” This photo is a good opportunity to check out the MAC logo patch. Its also a chance to notice that there are no sleeve bands at all.
Left arm of the undershirt
Sam the Minuteman peeks out on the left arm sleeve. This also give us a view to see that the numbers and graphics do not appear to be sewn, rather heat-set.
The big news in this release is the new helmet. Black is the primary color, and it features a new logo.
Read from back to front, large to small: U Mass.
The text MASS is dimensional, with a beveled edge. The white U behind it appears to only sport the beveled look at the bottom, below the Mass. But, commenters assure us it is beveled throughout. We will try to find some official graphics.
The buzz across the internet is that there will also be a black jersey and pants to be worn as a special alternate, but those, nor the whites, were not shown today.
Thanks goes out to twitter fan Pickety P who alerted us of the unveiling. Well done, friend!
EDIT: Upon being assured by @ChrisGregg01 on twitter that the U is beveled, we looked and found this letter to a recruit, showing the new logo, from UMassNation.com
What do you think? Do you admire the Minutemen’s clean look and black helmet? Are you irritated they have added black, or just glad it wasn’t matte? Do you think a new team to the FBS should have gone bigger?
JR Francis is an actor, writer, director, graphic designer, UX guru, father, comedian, and craft beer snob. You can reach him at jrfrancis@sportslogos.net or on Twitter @JRFrancisSLN *One of several full-time uniform reporters this site has including its founder, Chris Creamer, who started his site in 1997
Jake
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 20:24That's a nice compression shirt!
dan-o
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 21:30nice, welcome to the mac conference
BL.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 22:13Nice look, I am actually using them in NCAA 13.
Ethan
Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 00:52Don't like the Helmet.. Looking foward to that new black alternate though
Marcus Jackson
Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 01:02That's a sweet helmet logo!
Ryan from Mass
Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 10:16Really nice to see some uni news on UMass. I wanna start getting to some Mass football games this season and I absolutely love the addition of the black helmet, and i really like the compression shirt too. I like how the added the minuteman graphics yet they positioned it in a way that didnt make the uniform look to busy. They found a way to show the Massachusetts Identity and keep it new yet classy at the same time. BIG THUMBS UP! Cannot wait to see the solid black digs.
ingmar66
Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 17:51Nice helmet and basically a nice uniform, but this graphics on undershirt crap has got to stop. Only during Media day can one truly distinguish these graphics, during a game it will look like a crumpled mess. Better have a patch with Sam on the sleeves or the shoulders.
Matt
Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 06:16Another black helmet, yawn. Where are the other 6 helmets and uniforms that this new pathetic trend in college has adopted?