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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/matte_purple on 2024-08-09 23:35:00+00:00.
Hello to the great readers of r/CFB! Welcome to my ranking of the Big 12 drip kings, the University of Central Florida Knights 2023 season uniforms! UCF had a rollercoaster Big 12 inaugural season, had some wild upsets, tough breaks, and - of course - slick uniform combos. We’ll get into it right away. Before we do, I’ll let you know I’ve already ranked Kansas, BYU, WVU, Colorado, TCU, Arizona State, and OK-State, and I intend on ranking the rest of the Big XII teams (sans K-State and Arizona) soon. If you are interested in my thoughts regarding the Big XII uniform season, check out myBig 12 2023 Season-in-Review or the 2023 Uniform Awards post. If you want to go back further, check out my profile or these 2022 posts: 2022 Uniform Awards and Big XII Uniform Tracker 2022: Season-in-Review. But for now, let’s check out what Orlando’s hometown team wore in their 2023 Big 12 season, featuring some facts, stats, and history. As always, feel free to disagree with me or tell me if my placements feel right. I’m interested in hearing what you think, or in seeing how y’all would rearrange the rankings. Let’s do it!
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I’m u/matte_purple, and let’s 3,2,1 go!
13. Gold/White/Black - Week 10 vs Cincinnati (W, 28-26)
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The good: I love the helmets on this combo. I’m a sucker for most cursive helmets these days (see Maryland, WKU, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and Arizona’s cursive lids), and the little details like the sword-point center stripe, sword point “t” and UCF star on the dot in the “i” take the cake. The bad: as a whole, the look feels like a couple different distinct looks cobbled together. The jersey is from the “Lightmode” variant, and it kind of feels out of place when not used with the rest of the Lightmode set. Plus, I’m just not a huge fan of tri-color looks. This one just happens to be the worst. Lots to like about this one, but plenty to scratch your head at.
12. White/White/White - Lightmode - Week 6 at KU (L, 51-22)
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This was a highly anticipated look! I totally get the appeal of having a shining white, crisp, almost royal uniform like this. I loved the way it looked in the promo material, the photoshoots looked great, but on the field in the afternoon sun, specifically on camera and TV, these just felt off. There are some excellent touches, the sort of transparent secondary Knighthead logo on the shoulders, the front helmet bumper with “Orlando” on it, and the gold decal and Big 12 logo that shines nicely against the white. But, despite how good the pictures look, the suits desperately need just a little bit of a black (or even gray) outline on the numbers. It’s going to be popular with the recruits, for sure. The prevalent sword point center stripe, three star pant leg stripe, and - again - dope gold color are all awesome. It just feels slightly impractical on the field. It also doesn’t help that this was paired against KU’s best home look.
11. Gold/White/Black - UCF Logo - Week 8 at OU (L, 31-29)
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I fully expect my dislike of this uniform to be controversial, I’m just too much of a stickler for the symmetry to put much stock in the mismatch. Normally, I would say that another color than black works better for pants in “mismatch” combos, but UCF hasn’t really figured out the shade of gold right on their pants (as seen in Week 3 of 2022 against FAU). But I digress, UCF’s mismatch works far better than some others that I’ve seen because of how more complementary to black and white gold is than - say - the purple and orange of Clemson. I will admit, my disdain for tri-color looks is slowly fading away, but I really do think symmetry and proportional looks are better when it comes down to it.
10. Gold/White/Black - Cursive Knight’s Logo - Week 12 at TTU (W, 48-17)
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Obviously, the ranking on this suit is quite similar to the last one. In this case, I just think the Cursive Knight’s logo fits better. Simple as that. As it goes, the standard UCF stack logo (which is still a pretty nice logo) is worn in the vast majority of games: by my calculation, from 2022 on: the Cursive Knight’s logo on both sides was worn on 2 helmets; 2 helmets had Cursive on one side with UCF on the other; the Knighthead on both sides was worn on 1 helmet; and the Knighthead on only one side with the UCF logo on the other 1 time; a Florida state outline throwback helmet once; and finally, the standard UCF logo on both sides a remaining 20 times. As you can see, I really try to latch on to alternate looks when they show up, because the Knights have some awesome ones. We’ll still see some better looks here soon, though.
9. Black/White/Black - Week 4 at K-State (L, 44-31)
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Oreo! Man, we love a good Oreo look here on the Big 12 uniform tracker/ranker. These look great, there’s a wonderful symmetry here, and UCF getting to use black as a school color is a definite plus. But I will say, I was very shocked not to see any gold here. The uniforms look good, of course, it’s UCF, but I really do wish we would’ve seen more gold. Especially a gold UCF logo, which seems like a no-brainer. These are just a little too monochrome for me.
8. Gold/Black/Black - Week 1 vs Kent State (W, 56-6)
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Oftentimes, teams that switch it up often (Oregon, BYU, OK-State, Arizona State, etc.) gravitate toward a certain look. I call it the workhorse look, or the ESPN+ look. Usually not the best combo but often a beloved and recognizable outfit, they all carry that same “ol-reliable sweatshirt that always gets worn on the weekends” feel. While this combo is slightly different from the ol-reliable, thanks to a different helmet (gold UCF logo, not white) and the different “Knightmode” jerseys introduced last year, it’s basically the same “workhorse” look worn twice last season (Week 2 and 4 in 2022). They also wore the more “traditional” jersey in this same combo in the 2023 Gasparilla bowl versus Georgia Tech. We’ll get to those in just a bit! In general, I think these are very safe, pretty classic (at least for this new set of uniforms introduced in 2022), and nice. Why does it rank a little bit lower than the other similar suit? One: The shades of gold don’t quite match, which is a little bit jarring to the senses. Two: The gold stack logo on the gold helmet doesn’t have enough contrast for me. But I do love those shoulder “Knighthead details and the black sword helmet stripe looks fantastic compared to the other varieties.
7. Black/Black/Black - Knightmode - Week 5 vs Baylor (L, 36-35)
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Speaking of the Knightmode suits, behold! The Knight’s decided to wear something inaugural for their first ever Big 12 game versus Baylor in the Bounce House. These look excellent! The blackout factor, the shoulder pauldrons with the menacing secondary logo, the gold chrome on the helmet, they all look fantastic. Paired against Baylor’s all white, it’s an incredible look. But sadly, there is a glaring issue here: the gold color on the font doesn’t match the rest of the suit. It’s enough of a change that it really takes me out of it compared to the previous suit, because the gold helmets in that combo seemed to mesh better. When the only other gold you have to compare the font to is the UCF logo, it definitely looks different. The blackou…
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