Discrim

Something new, something borrowed, something blue and something or other...first, the other half of the Brawl of the Wild, Montana...decided to go with something basic for the first choice, so a monogram and silver pinstripes it was. For the clash, half is silver, and half is barcode-like striping. The harlequin design I used for the third jumper uses both Montana's current (maroon/silver) and former (copper/gold) color schemes. Next, they of the Sistine Chapel impersonating bench, Monmouth...there's two tone navy going on in the logos, so I figured I'd get in on that for the home jumper (notice how the torso is slightly lighter than the shorts, socks and cuffs), and the clash has shadow chevrons on the torso. No third this time out. Third, Eastern Illinois...not sure if they're ditching black, or if the school goes the way of Morris Brown in the near future, but this is what I did. The tapered, two-tone stripe is basically the eastern portion of a compass rose, and the clash has a black and blue-hooped mid stripe to break up the otherwise all-white affair. Then I give you a fauxback with the older panther mascot on the shorts, and the jumper based on his sweater. And last for now, Utah State...dunno about anybody else, but I prefer the bull over the U-State logo, so I mainly used the former. Home design is a two-stripe V on navy, while the clash is based on the Brisbane Lions, but in USU colors. Utah State's traditional A adorns the fauxback guernsey. I don't wanna overstate it, but he's the greatest entertainer to ever LIIIIIIIIIIVE!!

IIRC my rod hockey game was Isles-Flyers too, I think the Rockies logo was there but I'm not 100% sure. Figure I'll post another of my forays into print & play football while I'm at it. I'm thinking about pre-playing the Super Bowl...just not yet. The other day, I decided to go with something of a dream matchup: the 1990 Eagles @ the 2004 Falcons. Cunningham vs Vick, in other words. Far as the game of choice, this time out I went with Coach's Call Football (another Soren Narnia game), which has two basic schticks: first, like Heroes & Rallies, the ability to rate each team's players; second, aside from the first few rolls of the game, you'll only need to roll the dice once per play. Anyways, on to the highlights: The Falcons started this one off fast, as Allen Rossum took the opening kickoff from the 4 to the Eagles' 11, and then Warrick Dunn ran it in on the first play from scrimmage. After forcing the Eagles to punt, Atlanta started the next drive from their own 41, and drove down to the Eagle 1, where Vick snuck in for the second TD to make it 14-0 Falcons. Atlanta's next drive kickstarted something of a comedy of errors...after making it to the Eagles 32, the Falcons got pushed back to the 37, where the drive stalled, and figuring it was too early for a long field goal, Atlanta elected to punt, but Chris Mohr bobbled the snap and had to fall on the ball to prevent what might have been a huge Philly return, though it was now the Eagles in prime field position at the Falcon 48. A 26-yard pass to Calvin Williams was the highlight of the drive, which stalled out at the 21, so the Eagles trotted out Roger Ruzek for the field goal...which was blocked, and the Falcons took over at the 29. Atlanta didn't have the ball for very long, however, as after reaching the 39 on a keeper, Vick coughed it up, with some guy who's now a radio host falling on it. This time, the Eagles were able to cash in, with Cunningham connecting with Keith Byars for their first score. The ball security issues flared up again after that, however, as Justin Griffith had a good news/bad news run...the good news: he'd rumbled for 30 yards. The bad news: he managed to cough the ball up, with the Eagles recovering. Somewhat fittingly, Cunningham was picked off by Keith Brooking...who almost negated the INT by fumbling almost immediately, though he managed to fall on it. Vick wasn't so lucky, as he wound up fumbling again, and the Eagles managed to reach their 39 on the recovery, and then tied it on a ten play drive that started with a 7 yard run from Heath Sherman and ended with Sherman punching it in from two yards out, which would be the last score of the half. The third quarter was largely defensive struggle, as the Falcons only managed a field goal. There was one highlight, though: Eagles returner Marvin Hargrove returned a punt 65 yards before being brought down at the Falcons 8. A few plays later, Byars had his second touchdown grab to put the Iggles ahead 20-17, but the extra point was blocked, and though I didn't know it at the time, this would be Philly's only lead. Early in the fourth quarter, Mohr made up for his earlier fumble with a great punt that pinned the Eagles at their own 2, and then the bottom fell out for Cunningham and company, as Sherman bobbled a handoff, which an Atlanta player quickly walked into the endzone with, giving the lead back to the Falcons. The next Eagle drive started in a more favorable spot, the 30 yard line, but didn't last much longer, as a third down pass was intercepted by DeAngelo Hall, whose return to the Eagle 22 set up another touchdown, which made the score 31-20 Falcons. The Eagles' generosity wasn't exhausted just yet, as a long haul by Keith Jackson was nullified when a Falcons player managed to strip him at their 38, and the loose ball was picked up by a Falcon and returned to the Eagle 47. About the only thing to go wrong for Atlanta in this stretch was when Dez White was injured after making a diving catch for 15 yards. Atlanta was able to punch it in for six again, and it was 38-20 at this point. The Eagles attempted a furious comeback, but their butter fingers had ultimately doomed their chances at victory, it was simply too late in the game and Atlanta had made them pay dearly for their mistakes, as a touchdown drive featuring several long passes and capped off by a Cunningham bootleg were ultimately too little, too late. The onside kick was recovered by the Falcons, and that was all she wrote, Atlanta 38, Philadelphia 26. It's ironic...or maybe it's not. Football is my favorite sport, but as far as board games where you simulate every play, there are honestly very few I've played that I don't hate some aspect of, and sadly, few I can honestly say I can actually stomach playing a full game, let alone say I enjoyed. I loved Vince Lombardi's game, I wish I knew as a kid what I know now about electric football, and I can honestly say that while Coach's Call may not be the game I've dreamt of, it is the most pleasurable play I've had since the last time I played Lombardi. I could never get Strat-o-Matic or Statis Pro truly figured out, never really gave Paydirt a fair shake, I think APBA football is a joke, and then there's Pizza Box, which I have something of a love-hate relationship with. PB has some good ideas...and also a few notable problems: calling defenses tends to be somewhat of a joke, as there's the distinct possibility that there'll be absolutely no effect on the offense, even if you guess right. By that token, if the offense has the advantage, in most other games they can burn the defense, sometimes badly. Pizza Box? Yeah...probably not gonna happen. And yet, every now and then, I attempt to play it, still.

Haha, I remember Basket. Another one I remember is an old Value Village find, a simple baseball game that you played with your baseball cards. As long as there was a batting average on the back, it was game on. This isn't why I'm bringing this thread back from the dead, though. Yesterday and today, I'd decided to pre-play the conference title games. The game of choice, in this case, is a print & play by the name of Heroes & Rallies Football from a guy named Soren Narnia, which I can only describe as something of a hybrid of a quick-play game and a standard game, leaning more towards the former (as there are individual plays, but these are only used if you decide to go for it on 4th down or it's the last play of the half), and which utilizes a simple rating system: first, points are allocated to each team depending on whether one is favored over the other (using won-loss record), then these points are spent designating certain players as elite (QBs are worth 4, return men and punters 1, everybody else 2, and no more than one per position group [WRs and TEs are lumped together as REC]). With that said, my pre-play recaps:

The obscurity sector, starting with Fairfield basically, the design is very thick hoops with a pocket. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi The home's stylized stripes are meant to remind you of a wave. Actually, so's the third. The white's design is merely a design, upon which is a tiki mask. Lastly, Montana State Good ol' stripes for the home, chalk stripes for the third, and whatever you'd call it, faux gradient or colorblocking, that's what the clash yoke is. Feed me designers or feed me beats

Cal State-Fullterton The first choice's stripes are varying widths, and you can see a sunburst on them as well. LSU Stripes of some sort all the way here for the Bayou Bengals. The vintage set is only really vintage in that thin sashes like what I used there aren't used often anymore. Baylor If you're not familiar with Aussie rules, don't adjust your monitor, yes, both the home and clash have green and gold stripes. Generally, the home team wears colored shorts, while the visitors usually wear white shorts. The AFL has matches like that all the time. Georgia Went with a bone motif and silver shorts, with black alternate shorts. Part three coming next

Apparently a certain team is going going...back back...to Cali Cali...in any event, I knew they were coming, but you will never obliterate Scrim, because Scrim is unobli...unobilite...unoblit...you can't kill me. first, Arkansas Decided to go with something relatively simple, yet it ended up as something I don't think I've seen IRL. looking like a letter jacket, Canisius I figured I could make something of this ilk work. I believe I have. In the Valley of the Sun... I know one thing: the pitchfork is a fine logo. Its main problem, though, is that it isn't Sparky. In Arizona...we like to party...whenever Discrim's in the ho-o-o-ouse... The alternating hoops are admittedly a horizontal version of soccer club Willem II's home shirt. I may redo it, however, given the clash is...drumroll please...copper fading to white. got a lot of new stuff, so Part 2 in my next post...

BryantH: sorry for the monthlong wait, but to answer your questions: many of the earliest Aussie rules guernseys used laces, though since all the AFL clubs wear sublimated jumpers nowadays, throwbacks from the 1800s and early 1900s often utilize sublimated laces. The faux zipper, in this case, was inspired by both the laces and baseball's forgotten zipper era, which was overshadowed by the pullover era, and at least in my mind, is exclusive to Akron (take a wild guess what "Zips" was originally short for), though had college Aussie rules existed here in the 40s or 50s, I imagine there might've been schools who decided to adopt zippers either after seeing Akron in action, or independently. Buttons, not so much, given the tackling and all. Now for the new stuff...first, BYU The home "darkest royal blue" (yes, they actually call it that. At least, they called it that last time I checked.) kinda looks like a bowling shirt, after some hindsight. The clash design is a big Y, and the alt is an experimental design. Next up, UC Irvine The home is based on Brisbane's, with the anteater taking the lion's place...the clash is a fairly standard sash, and the fauxback combines the UCI monogram with an Ajax stripe. Third up, North Florida An old North Melbourne away jumper inspired the home design, as did the fact that UNF's osprey logo is a relatively odd one. Then there's the similar but different clash, and the fauxbacks, intended to resemble Geelong hand-me downs customized slightly. Last up, Dayton I had the Penguins' late 90s jerseys on my mind when I made the home red. The other two are firmly in the realm of "trying :censored:"

More than a decade ago, I'd found a game of Pursue the Pennant...had all the 1987 teams too. Hadn't played it that often, but on a lark I decided to give PTP a play in the afternoon, Mets at Astros. Naturally, there was only one way to go for the pitching matchup: Gooden-Ryan under the dome. I can tell you one thing, I kinda wish I'd had the Doc and Ryan of a few years earlier, if only because while the old Texan was mowing down Mets like it was nothing, Gooden struggled to eke out one K in 7 IP while giving up three runs. Then Houston got unlucky in the 8th, as a couple walks and a single, combined with Ryan's 6 stamina convinced me to send in a reliever...who apparently angered a black cat or something, as his adventure in pitching included a liner just over the 2B's glove and the first baseman booting it, all contributing to the Mets storming back to tie the game and send it to extra innings. The Mets won in the 12th after Keith Hernandez doubled and later advanced from 3rd on a sac fly, IIRC I sent in Bobby Ojeda (as I'd already used Randy Myers, who dominated in his two innings before being pinch hit for) to finish the game, and the Astros basically kept on doing the nothing they'd been doing for the last several innings, so game over, 3-2 Mets. I know one thing, the Astros probably would've won if I'd made better choices regarding the bullpen, but what can you do? That was honestly a weak 'pen, especially compared to that of those Mets.

Now that I'm awake enough to remember em: EA's Arena Football games, mostly the unlockable teams. EA gave the Oklahoma Wranglers early 2000s Miami ripoffs like the unrelated Austin Wranglers wore at the time, only they never wore anything remotely resembling it (their real uniforms featured jerseys with maroon torsos, black sleeves and a silver yoke [with the traveling whites having silver sleeves and a maroon yoke]), while the New York Cityhawks only had the gold helmet...with purple home jerseys, white roads and white pants (three things the Cityhawks never wore in their brief existence. Their 1997 uniforms featured gold helmets and pants with black jerseys...and gold jerseys worn with black helmets and pants; in 98, they wore all black at home, all gold on the road). Another swing and miss was the Houston Thunderbears, I forget what EA gave em, but I think orange pants were part of the game version's road uni. I do remember what was nowhere in sight: the orange thunderbolts that'd adorned the RL jerseys and pants. They probably got the Detroit Fury wrong, but those disgraces only deserve to be forgotten That I was surprised they managed to get the Milwaukee Mustangs exactly right is kinda sad.

I know one thing, I was pretty good at Super Play Action. As long as I'm thinking about it, IIRC in a number of the early Madden games, the Bills wore blue pants with their white jerseys despite having dumped them in the mid 80s. IIRC some other road unis used nonexistent pants at the time as well (Eagles in green pants, maybe blue pants for the Giants, I definitely remember the 1980 Falcons being given red pants). The PSX version of Tecmo Super Bowl inexplicably had the Packers wearing green helmets at home (but the normal gold away). In NFL 2K5, the numbers on the Jaguars' whites had a black/gold/black outline, instead of gold/black. Last one I can think of at the moment, in the last few versions of the PS2 Maddens, the Steelers' white jersey stripes lacked any black, and the Patriots' silver and Saints' gold pants lacked their stripes for no apparent reason.

Live by the sword, die by the sword...Xavier Just hold on we're goin home...Drake The Drake relays inspired the running track sash. Not sure what inspired the 3rd jumper's design.

Well...UCF stand up! The home gold and clash black both use a lance-inspired sash (diagonal's more like it, but I'm a tad rusty)...the alternate, if I were Nike, I'd dub "Knight of Pegasus" given the use of UCF's academic logo, a pegasus (which also adorned the football helmets a few decades back).

I'd seen that in JC Penney some years back, but didn't have enough to blow on it at the time. Naturally, when I went back a few weeks later, they were sold out. Can't really help you as far as getting your players to run any faster though. I remember having a rod hockey game back in the day, and also a soccer game similar in fashion to rod hockey but it was battery powered rather than using rods, making it much smaller than the rod hockey game...though I remember still spinning the lever (for lack of better term) to make the players kick. The most mileage, easily, though...back when I was in middle school, I'd play paper football against a friend after school, unless (or probably even if) I'd been dumb enough to get myself in detention. IIRC sometimes we used a penny, but usually he'd folded a football beforehand, and sometimes I folded the ball. Good times.

I own a number of board games, some older, some newer, some print-and-play; I've been working on one of my own design off and on for the last few months (or year, I lost count ) and I can still fold a paper football like I was back in middle school Among those I own, there's NFL Playoff, which has a field and a Monopoly-like board, along with cards that have six results depending on where you land. Low on strategy, you're more of a spectator, and the scoresheet that comes with the game is weird, so I'd initially found it to be something of a sluggish play. Since you only roll one die when moving on the board though, I found using the other die to mark downs sped up play greatly. Then there's an apparently rare baseball game known as Baseroll. It was supposed to be part of a series, depicting various ballparks, but apparently only Wrigley Field was ever sold. Found it in Value Village several years ago, and I figure its' best point is that you can make your own teams. Not the greatest play, but it's serviceable. I've had an old electric football game in my possession in my younger years. Being I was a pre-internet kid, though, and electric football games bought at Value Village almost never have instructions anywhere in sight, naturally I had no idea what I was doing with it. Didn't even do what raysox did. Only learned how it was supposed to be played in my mid 20s. Figures. An old favorite I still own is Pro Draft, which you could play using your own football cards, and as the name implies, your aim was to draft the best offense (no defense tray). Among those I've never owned, History Maker Baseball and Second Season top the list of games I wanna try.

Here goes San Diego State The spears on the home jumper are meant to resemble Australian football goalposts (kick it between the tall ones, get 6 points. Kick it between one tall and one short, settle for one point. Between a short post and thin air? Gain only shame and ridicule. Basically footy in a nutshell.). Spears make a sort of sash on the black jumper, and then the throwback is based on the Marshall Faulk era SDSU football uniform, its striping specifically.

Yeah, that was a fashion jersey all the way. I find it humorous in hindsight that this was two tone blue...and the Avs wore neither shade IRL. I remember seeing a real nice looking green Stars jersey in Foot Locker around 97 ish, kinda wish I'd sprung for it.

I figure one thing, the Riverdogs' "Holy City" logos got me thinking of one of the teams in this past summer's TBT...team City of Gods (main thing I can say about them...if those guys were gods, Mike Sweetney must've been Buddha. Dude looked like Oliver Miller out there). All the Sally needs now are teams calling themselves Gnats Alumni, Team 23 (or 24...or 2..or 42...or insert favorite player's number here) and Overseas Elite

Back to footy, in time for the AFL finals...and holy crap Freo's the minor premier. Mind blown. Here goes Southern Miss The third: basically, Scrim. Faux gradient. Together again.

New batch...though a batch I meant to release last week...so week-old batch. The first in the batch is already dated, due to recent events... The home and clash both use a flame motif, to varied extents, while the 2nd home is modeled after a dragon underbelly. Next up, Loyola Marymount For the home, I figured a two-tone tapering stripe would fit well with the leaping lion. For the clash, a slanted take on quarters. Finally, for the clash, shadow-striped quarters. Third up, one of those schools nobody ever makes concepts for, Longwood Lastly, I've never posted a concept for any Canadian university...until now. Ladies and gents, the Carleton Ravens You might be wondering why the third jumper's red when the home and clash are straight black and white. Carleton teams have been known to occasionally use red as a trim color.