If we're to set aside everything I've ever written, the most famous line in college football journalism is this banger by Grantland Rice: "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again."
That line, published Oct. 18, 1924, opened Rice's piece about a Notre Dame-Army game, and in 1999 the New York Times described it as "The Sports Story That Changed America."
"In a few swift, polished sentences -- and with an assist from a photograph -- Rice changed his own life, his profession, the course of college football and the character of American leisure culture," Allen Barra wrote.
That line may or may not have changed America, but it certainly changed Notre Dame. Along with "Win one for the Gipper" and, later, Rudy, those 12 words served as a bedrock of the media's mythologization of Notre Dame from one of many small, Catholic universities in the Midwest into the preeminent college football program in America, at least for a time.
Notre Dame will return to New York City to face Army on Nov. 23 for the 100th year anniversary of that game (the original was at the Polo Grounds, this will be at Yankee Stadium), and the Irish understandably want to mark the occasion with some Four Horsemen-inspired uniforms. (If your program was the subject of such a transformative line, they would play it up just as much.)
The problem, though, is that while "blue-gray" might look good when outlined against an October sky, it doesn't look great on a uniform.
"Story-telling" has overtaken the uniform industry in recent years, which is all well and good when the story it tells is about a sharp-looking uniform. But this? Would Notre Dame ever wear these otherwise? Will the 99.2 percent of viewers even have the faintest clue why Notre Dame is wearing a uniform that's not quite blue, not quite gray?
And the base color may not even be the worst part. What's going on with those numbers? They look like stickers your pre-school teacher placed on your daily report, and they appear like they'll peel off just as easily.
The number font if "Gotham gothic," meant to evoke typeface from old-timey newspapers. (Get it?)
Notre Dame began its Shamrock Series tradition in 2009, and began concocting new uniforms for the game in 2011.
The Irish are 11-0 in Shamrock Series games (the Arizona State win was later vacated), which wouldn't happen without the lore of Notre Dame's brand, which wouldn't exist without Rice.
So the Irish have Grantland to thank for that, which is probably enough to make up for these uniforms, but we'll have to wait for November to be sure.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.