The navy blue was great. Goddamn, as a kid born in the 80’s, by the mid-90’s I was full blown psycho Cyclone fan and the morning I saw the new logos announced in the Des Moines Register nearly blew my young mind. That logo set is so damn creative and extensive. Yes, it’s cartoony - it was absolutely perfect for its time.
The EARLY uniforms using the tertiary blue were fantastic and the color and scheme and design were really well done - i.e. the 95-97 football uniforms, the 95-98 basketball uniforms, the redesign for 98-98, the Adidas iterations from 99-03).
Honestly, what RUINED our school colors and the blue and basically everything was the initial Nike contract in ~2003. Holy sh*t I’m still pissed whoever signed that, we basically got low-high school level uniform templates (and quality) in every sport. It wasn’t until the Chizik redesign for football when we got real football uniforms (believe they did or maybe still do refer to the level as “Nike Elite”) and it wasn’t until Gmac’s final year where basketball got a true ‘Elite’ level template - and even that template was a rip off of Michigan State, who had already moved on to the next/better/newer Nike uniform structure.
Would love for us to get a better design for football but it seems like the cost effective thing to do is to stick with solid colors with no extra striping, design, etc. Like many other schools getting ‘new’ Nike uniforms, many are doing away with stripes/designs on the pants. Cincinnati for example got new Nike threads this year and same deal - no striping, nothing crazy custom, etc.
For MBB, I really like our current template. The piping/sides seem to be ‘custom’ with an attempt to mimic a tornado. All the combos look good. I especially love the gold “Cyclones” on the home whites.
