This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/matte_purple on 2024-02-22 13:24:12.
Howdy to the beautiful people of r/CFB! Welcome to my ranking of the 2023 uniforms for Oklahoma State Football! What a wild season for our Cowboys, huh? Those first wild losses, a great Bedlam win, the rise of Ollie Gordon, and Mike Gundy finding ways to get it done, all the while wearing beautifully redone uniforms! I intend on ranking most of the Big XII teams and new PAC additions (ASU, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah) soon. If you are interested in my thoughts regarding the Big XII uniform season, check out my 2023 Season-in-Review Post or my recent 2023 Uniform Awards post, which is pinned to my profile. If you want to go back further, check out my profile for these other 2022 posts: 2022 Uniform Awards and Big XII Uniform Tracker 2022: Season-in-Review. (for some reason, Reddit freaks out if I try and link them). But for now, let’s check out what the Cowboys donned in their 2023 Big 12 runner-up season, featuring some facts, stats, and history. As always, feel free to disagree with me or tell me if my rankings hit home. I’m interested in hearing what you think, or in seeing how y’all would rearrange the rankings!
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I’m u/matte_purple, and let’s 3,2,1 go!
13. Orange/White/Black - Cursive Cowboys Week 11 at UCF (L, 45-0)
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Shame! Shame upon this uniform! A curse! I audibly laughed when I saw this released on OK-State’s Twitter, because I recognized it from the 2022 shellacking suffered at the hands of K-State. While the back-to-back shutout losses wearing these don’t help the reputation of the look, I judge strictly off the uniforms themselves. The template helps streamline the suit, but it still feels unbalanced thanks to it being a tricolor, with the black pants really weighing the look down and the orange throughout feeling oddly out of place. If only we could have seen orange pants for a dreamy “creamsicle” look. It’s a shame that the orange shell helmet has to be put this low, as it’s probably my favorite “Cursive Cowboys” shell (with the black shell a close second, and both sets of white at third, all very close). This is still a great uniform; In fact, OSU didn’t have a bad uniform this season, hence why they ranked as the 1st Place Big 12 Uniform Team in my 2023 Uniform Awards. It’s just the least from this year.
12. White/Orange/Black - Homecoming Pete Week 9 vs UC (W, 45-13)
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Man, I hate putting this suit here. The helmet is one of my favorite ones OSU wore this season, and is the only reason this isn’t in last place. It features a neat asymmetrical stripe in the center, a 1984 version of Pete (aptly named “Wooly Chaps Pete”) and the original Pistol Pete’s - Frank B. Eaton’s - signature on the back bumper. I tend to really dig any Pistol Pete helmet, but alas, the lack of symmetry, monochromaticity, or blocking leaves it feeling disjointed and bottom heavy. It sucks to put this one here. All it needed was white pants to become a really great contender!
11. White/White/Black - Pistol Pete Week 4 @ ISU (L, 27-34)
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Just know that from here on out, the ranking becomes very difficult. All of these are neck-and-neck, with tiny details setting each apart. Let’s talk about these ones. The upside to these? Pistol Pete looks great on a white helmet. The downside? They took a gamble with the orange-fonted white jersey, where I think a black-font away uniform would have felt more natural. Also, this matchup really could have used a commitment to more orange to really pop against ISU’s alternates, instead of what felt like a 50/50, more uncertain feel from the orange font to everything else. Wearing black against a blackout team is just tough. Anyways, Pete was worn on a helmet 3 times this year, with the standard OSU brand appearing 3 times as well.
10. Black/White/Orange - Pistol Pete Week 8 at WVU (W, 48-34)
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This combo feels like the most balanced of the tri-colors worn this year, and I think it’s mainly due to the orange pants. Black pants in a tricolor tend to feel too bottom heavy, white makes it feel too light, but orange provides a good pop of color while anchoring the look. In fact, orange pants in general seem to be a really good idea, as demonstrated by some of the later picks. I love the way the outlined font ties together both the helmet and pants color, especially when factoring in the helmet and shoulder striping. Plus, I know this color combo (not necessarily the Pete logo, even if I love him) is a favorite. It’s a sad coincidence that all of the Pistol Pete helmets worn this year are so low, because they’re my favorite logo that the Cowboys wear.
9. White/Orange/White - Brand Week 1 vs UCA (W, 27-13)
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Ol’ reliable. The Pokes have worn a white helmet to start since 2016, and more often than not it seems to be paired with an orange jersey. While I can’t call these “plain” by any stretch, they just feel like the most worn combo. Don’t get me wrong, I love the symmetry, I love the brand, especially all done up with a pretty new template, but this is just the tired version of a more wired/sleek version like #8 and #6. Again, I love it - especially the way the orange facemask lights up the look - it’s just edged out by a couple other versions with the brand. Here’s an interesting stat regarding the logos on helmets: Out of the 60 unique helmets introduced between 2006 and 2023, a variation of the standard orange brand graced the helmet a whopping 16 times, or about 27%. The next most seen logo out of the 60 is the mid 2010s Marshall Badge. The standard orange brand was also the most worn logo in the same time period, at 138 games out of the 245 in that 2006-2023 period, chalking up to an almost 57% wear rate. Clearly, the orange brand is king, and it will certainly continue to be used.
8. Black/Orange/Black - Brand Week 13 vs BYU (W, 40-34 2OT)
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I was just talking about a better version of the last uniform, and here one is! These suits feel like the bigger, meaner cousin to the home-opener suits. Something about the black and orange melding together just feels fierce. I especially love the black facemask, and that symmetry is pleasing. Another reason the Cowboy’s suits are so successful is their Cimarron font – which was developed internally by Oklahoma State in 2019. It lends that “Old West” feel without going all-out, like a Wyoming typeface (not to say I don’t like Wyoming’s, it just wouldn’t work here). It provides that touch of sharpness and western flair that complements the 1980’s era striping so perfectly, especially when outlined in black against the orange. This feels classic in the absolute best of ways.
7. White/White/Black - Cursive Cowboys Week 12 at Houston (W, 43-30)
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We are officially in the top-half of the uniforms. This one had a lot of promise to it, but in the end, I liked the other mostly white away combo better. This look does a good job of tying in the black aspects of the uniform (an idea that gets replicated a little later). It’s very similar to Week 4’s look which ranked #11, just with a different logo and black lettering. It’s obviously not an original combo for this year, but while I’m a little bit weirded out that we didn’t see an all-white or BW/B look this year, I still like how the black details thread through the uniform. One additional thought: I hope OSU doesn’t get bogged down by the use of the Cursive Cowboy logo. I know it’s a fan favorite, and I know CFB at large love cursive logos, but this uniform marked the logo’s third consecutive appearance! More than that, the Pokes wore a variation of Cursive Cowboys 7 times this year! I know I am not practicing what I preach by putting the Cursive helmets in the top of the rankings, I just don’t want the spice of helmet variety to go away. Rant over! Sorry.
6. Black/Orange/Orange - Brand Week 3 vs South Alabama (L, 33-7)
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Now hey, I know this game was a stinker at home, but the uniforms looked wonderful! These are essentially the same top half as the Week 13 combo we put in Week 8, but now with orange pants. I think the orange has been undersold in the past few years of OK-State uniforms, so any time I see a lot of orange is a good thing. The black helmet darkens the orange color up a little bit, which I prefer to a white helmet like we saw in their 2022 Week 1 combo. I guess I could probably flip-flop on the rankings between these two, but it just felt right putting this combo (the most orange look we saw all year) up higher. Fun fact, the Cowboys have only worn all orange twice, most recently during last year’s homecoming. Anyways, The Brand shines nice on the black shell, and - like most of their uniform combos - the 2023 update elevates these to even higher standards.
5. White/Black/White - Cursive Cowboys Bowl vs TAMU (W 43-40)
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Symmetry. Nothing beats a great, symmetrical, crisp black and white suit. One of my favorite picks from last year was a Black/White/Black away look used against TCU, and these are very much in the same vein. And if I liked the symmetry even with the overabundance of detail on the old suits? Forget…
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