By Adam Mangum
'Rise and shout, the new uniforms are coming out!'
This is what the BYU athletic department is hoping will be sung by Cougars all over the campus.
'Oh wow,' the dedicated fan should say. 'A new logo and completely new uniforms. We're so lucky.'
Pardon me if I don't fit into that group. Since no one knows what the uniforms will look like until they are unveiled on Aug. 16, I don't think anyone is going to get too excited.
It's like opening a present from your rich aunt; it could be something really awesome, or it could be just an expensive paperweight.
But unlike a gift, where it's the thought that counts, these new uniforms better be really cool. If they look like anything recently produced by NFL Properties (i.e. Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans), then I will be very disappointed.
I've heard rumors that the new look will be a navy blue, rather than the old royal blue. Though there is no doubt that navy is more marketable than royal, be careful. The uniforms of the Cleveland Browns were hip once too, but tastes change.
If the Athletic Department really wants to make BYU more marketable, there is only one way to do that -- win consistently on a national level. University of Tennessee merchandise sells, even with its obnoxious orange hue. If we had a quarterback like Peyton Manning, then kids all over the country would wear BYU jerseys no matter what color you made them.
The change will most certainly cause an uproar among BYU fans, who will certainly ask, ''Y' change?'
These fans will put their objections behind the guise of tradition. But let's not confuse ourselves with Michigan, Notre Dame or Penn State. Though we do have an admirable tradition built over the last 20 years, we are hardly a pillar in NCAA football.
If done well, the new uniforms could be a boost for us nationally. Getting rid of the 'Y' helmet was well overdue. When non-sports fans outside of the Rockies saw our helmets, one word came to mind: Yale.
But some of the rumors I've heard have been a bit disturbing. Gold helmets? Please don't go there. I know that BYU fans everywhere have adopted the San Francisco 49ers as their surrogate football team, but gold helmets would be taking it a little too far.
Some funky, new-age cougar racing across the helmet? Please don't. The last thing we need is to be even easier targets for the men and women of ESPN to mock.
Actually, my greatest fear is that President Bateman will give in to the Ute blood running through his veins and put the color red somehow in the uniform mix. Life as we know it on Planet Cougar would officially end.
Either way, if BYU's football program once again rises to where it has been, the uniform discussion will disappear. Winning cures most everything.
But if the program dives, then there is no doubt that fans will yearn for the old days, when men were men, BYU threw the football on every down (sorry guys, that never happened), and BYU's uniforms were simple, and the helmets were adorned with a 'Y.'