Imagine this scenario prior to the start of Saturday's BYU-Utah football game:
All eyes are on Cougars — dressed in their home blue-on-white uniforms — as the team spills out onto the Edwards Stadium field.
What starts as a murmur in the stands ends up in an eruption of cheers throughout as fans recognize the Cougars' uniforms sport a different hue of blue — the old BYU royal blue.
Shades of decades past.
With the iconic look intact.
It's a gesture that would even bring a smile to the face of Hall of Fame coach LaVell Edwards, the once-stoic figure on BYU's sidelines.
The 2009 national college football scene has been replete with alternative jerseys (see TCU, Florida State, Virginia Tech et al), throwback jerseys (see Ohio State and Texas), black-out jerseys (see Utah and Georgia), say-what jerseys (see Tennessee's black-and-orange jerseys from Halloween night) and all-out uniform ensembles (see Oregon).
And while the program and personality of current Cougar head coach Bronco Mendenhall wouldn't seem to buy into faux-fashion rage going on across the country, what better time and setting than Saturday for a one-time tribute?
The silver-anniversary season honoring BYU's 1984 national championship team.
The 2009 regular-season finale.
At home.
Against rival Utah.
Or, using two of Mendenhall's own three-word mission statement, a chance to "honor" the Cougars' "tradition."
When Mendenhall took over in 2005, the Cougars had endured three uniform changes in the previous six seasons — first, a move to the new school colors of dark blue, white and tan in 1999, along with jersey "bibs" and dark-blue helmets. The NCAA forced BYU to drop the bib feature in 2000; in 2004, the Cougars were decked out in a mix-and-match, four-combination ensemble with UCLA shoulder treatments.
The new looks didn't wear well with most Cougar fans, who embraced the back-to-the-future change.
"Part of establishing tradition is to remain consistent," said Mendenhall when the current uniforms were made public in April 2005. "This is the look people associate with the great BYU teams of the past. I refuse to entertain anything that does not represent the greatness of BYU football."
The current Cougars already pay tribute to the 1984 team and season in several ways. A 25th-anniversary logo is worn as a sticker on player helmets and can be found on most '09 printed materials from posters to programs. And players from the '84 team have been carrying out the "alumni" Y flag at the start of each game this season.
Just think of adding a revised football uniform Saturday to the title-team tribute — royal blue jerseys, maybe with a commemorative patch, worn by current players with their own names on the back.
The change from the dark blues to royal blues would be the most significant difference between the 1984 and 2009 uniforms. Other distinctions — the '84 jersey was a mesh fabric, while the pants that sported two narrow, blue stripes running down the leg, while the '09 pants striping is the "Northwestern" pattern —a broad stripe sandwiched between a pair of narrow stripes.
And some 1984 pants — but not all — included a contemporary BYU/Cougar logo on the right hip.
Imagine not only the game-time buzz but the postgame financial benefits as well: BYU auction off the commemorative uniforms afterwards as a fund-raiser for the athletics department.
Utah has deployed its own uniform tweaks in the past — "black-out" games both this year and last have been successful, while Ute teams in past seasons switched their white pants of the time for red pants for a red-on-red look.
Said Mendenhall at the uniform unveiling five years ago: "This isn't about BYU having new uniforms. This is about honoring tradition. This is about respect for and accountability to the coaches and players who have made BYU one of the national pillars of college football. They represent a tradition of over 30 years of excellence, both on and off the field. They represent 23 bowl games, 21 conference championships as well as a national championship."
e-mail: taylor@desnews.com