Perrin takes on the NCAA | Prologue & First Batch

[PERRIN]

Ahoy gamers, it’s time to start another massive project for me to do when I need to take a break from my classwork.

 

This time, I’m completely reorganizing the entire NCAA, (almost, I’ll explain below) reshaping the conference setup to something that probably makes sense to only me, and then redesigning the uniforms of every single team. I understand this is a herculean undertaking, but I’m willing to give it a try. I have no idea if I’ll end up anywhere close to finishing, heck I might up ditching the project after only a few teams, I don’t know. We’ll see. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

 

Alrighty, time to jump into the messy part.

 

I’m splitting the NCAA into 8 conferences of 16 teams each, adding up to a grand total of 128 teams. I know there’s currently 131 teams in Division 1-A and more to join soon, but I was severely unhappy with the 11-conference-132-setup I tried, so I decided to ditch a few schools to please the perfectionist goblin in my brain.

The 3 schools I have removed are:

James Madison University - They literally just joined. Last one in, first one out. 

University of Alabama-Birmingham - They kinda suck, and also didn’t have football for a bit. If they can’t decide if they want football, I don’t wanna deal with them.

Umass Amherst - Umass is horrible at football. If anyone were to be upset about this, it’d be me, someone who lives in Massachusetts. I know people who went here, I doubt they’d even bat an eye if they got demoted out of Division 1.

 

All of them largely got removed completely arbitrarily, but hey, at least my conferences are evenly balanced and geographical sound.

 

For the conference alignments, I mostly wanted them to make sense geographically, as I dislike having conferences with obvious geographical outliers in most cases, so they’re pretty condensed. Conferences are also designed to account for school prestige, rivalries, (at least, the famous ones I’m aware of), and historical conference ties. The ones I decided to keep name-wise are based solely on the geography of the member schools, I don’t consider them to be more or less prestigious than other Group of 5 schools, I just think they fit better for what I went with.

 

Full conference breakdown:

 

In case the color coding isn’t clear, here’s a breakdown:

Spoiler

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC):

Army, Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Miami (FL), Navy, North Carolina, NC State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn, USF, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

 

Big 10 Conference:

Cincinnati, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Temple, West Virginia, Wisconsin

 

Big 12 Conference:

Arkansas, Arkansas State, Baylor, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech

 

Mid-American Conference (MAC), Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Liberty, Marshall, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, Old Dominion, Ohio, Toledo, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan

 

Mountain West Conference:

Air Force, Colorado State, Fresno State, New Mexico, New Mexico State, North Texas, Rice, San Diego State, San Jose State, SMU, Texas State, Tulsa, Utah State, UTEP, UTSA, Wyoming

 

PAC-12 Conference:

Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, BYU, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, UNLV, USC, Utah, Washington, Washington State

 

Southeastern Conference (SEC):

Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Tulane, UCF, Vanderbilt

 

Sun Belt Conference:

Appalachian State, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Eastern Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, Middle Tennessee, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Troy

 

I have no idea how scheduling would work, and I'm not nearly smart enough to figure it out, so I'm just not gonna bother. I imagine the CFP would include 12 teams, with seeds 1-6 being Power 5 conference winners + one Group of 5 3 conference winner, and seeds 7-12 being whichever remaining teams are worthy, I guess. Who knows. This is a concept series, not a legitimate proposal to the NCAA.

 

As stated earlier, I’ll hopefully be redesigning every single team from this list. I don’t have super strict rules about how the uniforms will be constructed, especially since college has looser rules than the NFL, but I’m mainly gonna focus on making distinct, well-crafted looks for every team I can get to, taking into account history and stuff aside from personal ideas of what fits the school. 

 

Thus begins my long journey forward. Hopefully this doesn’t fall flat. Let the games begin.

 

Made in Affinity designer. C&C appreciated.

 

[PERRIN]

Here’s the first batch of teams, I’m starting things off in the Big 12, starting with my mom’s alma mater, Oklahoma.

 

OU’s current set is classic but terribly plain to me, so I kept things class but added a bit of flair by incorporate the contrasting jersey elements and woodgrain pattern from the alternate roughrider set. Alternate swaps out white for cream, just because it looks so dang good. I was tempted to go full cream for both home and away, but decided against it as all-cream below the neck is a bit too much.

 

Next up, OU’s rivals in Stillwater, Oklahoma State.

 

I love OSU’s current jerseys, it’s the helmets and pants that fall flat for me. I took the striping from the white helmets of the current set, added the bandana pattern, slapped it on the pants, and kept it for all the orange. OSU looks best in white/orange/white, so that becomes the primary combo. Alternate combos and helmets allow for mix-an-match potential.

 

Heading down south across the river, we’ve got Baylor.

 

I essentially just combined Baylor’s current set with the bear-claw shoulder set, applying it a bit more tastefully and adding a funky stripe to the pants, inspired by the round font Baylor uses and the striping on the RGIII-era pants. White helmets are no more for the sake of color balance.

 

Last up for now, we’ve got Texas Tech.

 

I like their current set and the fun two-tone striping they use, it just isn’t applied super well. I placed it vertically on the shoulders where it has room to breath without muddying the chest or shoulder caps. White helmets and monochrome combos are gone.

 

That’s all for now, I like the idea of posting teams in batches of 4, so I’ll probably keep that up. Not sure who’s next just yet but I’ll probably finish the Big 12 before moving on to the next conference. Until next time!

 

Made in Affinity Designer. C&C appreciated.

[raysox]

"school locations aren't really accurate because I don't care that much"

boy you're right about that they moved USF to Miami!

Like what these look like so far. Nothing too far from reality but really solid all around. I would add a black pair of pants for Oklahoma State, but can't complain about anything you've shared.