“Retread Threads: Frieze Sleeves Leave Us Shamrock Weary Instead of Shamrock Cheery”

The wait is over. We now know what the Notre Dame football team will be wearing against Army in San Antonio later this year for the annual Shamrock Series game.

Here they are:

Well, they aren’t awful I suppose. As a noted uniform connoisseur I can find plenty not to like.

*For the third straight year Under Armour forgoes any white trim instead continuing the (dumb) trend of slapping two colors on top of each other without outlining. You want to know why it’s so hard for people to make out the shades of colors when you unveil things like this? There’s no white to bring out the colors!

*Related, apparently lessons were not learned from last year’s poor lighting at Fenway Park. Last I knew the Alamodome didn’t have the best lighting, even for an indoor stadium, which means absolutely nothing will pop on this uniform (especially without white trim!) and numbers/logos will be difficult to make out. The flushed out green and sandstorm-ish gold doesn’t help either. Odds are, these uniforms will look very, very dull on the field.

*The school went with the WWI memorial frieze above the east door of the Basilica as the logo for the helmet and shoulder sleeves. Again, there’s no trim on the sleeves and the helmet logo is in some weird brushed-on motorcycle helmet style. Since it’s so ornate both logos will be tough to make out unless the camera if right on top of the uniform.

*I can’t but help but think these are basically a slightly updated, but ultimately retreads, from the 2014 Shamrock Series uniform. One look at the replicas from that season and this is like a tweaked green version, except it’s trading a monogram and Gothic pattern for the WWI frieze.

*There’s an American flag on the upper back which, I believe, marks the return of the stars and stripes on the jersey for the first time since the post-9/11 years. The jersey and numbers font all appear to mimic that used on the WWI frieze, as well.

*There appears to be nothing of note from the pants on downward. Outside of getting the frieze on the uniforms there doesn’t seem to be much effort put into these. Which is probably my biggest problem. Say what you want about last year’s offering at least it tried and had some character! Under Armour has been frustratingly boring with the exact same standard uniforms for 3 straight years now and this Shamrock Series offering will ultimately fall into the forgettable bin.

*We’ll have to see how the whole thing flows in the flesh on the field. I don’t mind the helmet being so much  brighter (no different than the standard uniforms) and the shades everywhere look fairly uniform. Either way, Army is bound to have better uniforms when we play them in a few months.