The Big Ten Network released a poll ranking the football uniforms in the B1G from 1 to 14. The poll consisted of eight sportswriters, so it's not exactly a nationwide study. Seriously, have you seen how most sportswriters dress? They are hardly qualified to offer sartorial advice.
The voters were Steven Lassan (Athlon), Andrew Lind (LGHL), Stewart Mandel (FoxSports), Chris Vannini (Spartan Tailgate) and Jim Weber (Lostlettermen), plus BTN.com’s Tom Dienhart, Sean Merriman and Brent Yarina. Lind is affiliated with SBN tOSU blog Land Grant Holy Land and Vannini is with SpartanTailgate.com (MSU).
The voters ranked the teams 1-14. each first place vote got one point, each 14th place vote got 14 pts, etc, and the overall ranking was derived by ranking the teams from lowest total score to highest.
Here are the overall rankings:
1. Ohio State - 21 (3,2,2,1,3,1,6,3)
2. Michigan 23 (1,1,1,4,2,2,10,2)
3. Penn State 30 (2,3,3,3,10,5,3,1)
4. Michigan State 45 (8,5,6,7,4,3,2,10)
5. Nebraska 49 (5,4,4,11,6,6,7,6)
6. Northwestern 55 (7,9,9,8,1,11,5,5)
7. Iowa 58 (4,6,5,6,12,4,14,7)
8. Wisconsin 64 (6,7,7,12,7,7,9,9)
9. Minnesota 65 (10,10,11,2,8,8,12,4)
10. Maryland 72 (12,8,12,10,5,12,1,12)
t-11. Illinois 86 (9,13,14,5,9,10,13,13)
t-11. Purdue 86 (14,11,13,9,11,8,11)
13. Rutgers (11,12,8,14,13,14,4,14)
14. Indiana (13,14,10,13,14,13,11,8)
My takeaways:
- We were included in a B1G poll/ranking thing! I'm still getting used to this conference move being a real thing that happened to us. No take-backs, Delaney!
- Maryland's eye-melting, flag-based atrocity of a uniform beat Rutgers (and even got one first place vote).
- OSU, ttfp and Michigan ran away with it, probably not surprising given how
stodgy"traditional" the B1G is sometimes. - But the "traditional" thing is not consistent - what has changed about Wisconsin's or Iowa' s uniforms, like, ever?
- Someone (not alum Mandel) voted Northwester's purple and black number one. Interesting.
- Rutgers got a fourth place vote from the same guy who voted Maryland number 1, so that guy likes new-fangled edgy uniforms.
Here's how I would have ranked them (I'm kind of a traditionalist):
1. Michigan
2. Michigan State
3. tOSU
4. ttfp
5. Iowa
6. Minnesota
t-7. Wisconsin
t-7 Nebraska (same uniforms, basically)
9. Purdue
10. Northwestern
11. Rutgers (I like our helmets, not a huge fan of the uniforms overall, especially the all-reds, but I love the blackouts)
12. Indiana
13. Illinois
4,396,752 Maryland
Tell us your order below. Were these guys fair to Rutgers? Too nice to traditional powers?