Pitt, we got one question for you.
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If the United States government commissioned a fifty-billion dollar study to find the most boring color combination humanly possible, they'd come up with this blue and this gold. I can't think of a more forgettable uniform than Pitt's in the history of uniforms and Pittsburghs.
I call it "this blue and this gold" because Pitt never actually bothered to give their boring-ass colors a name. You can look through their 113 pages of bloated dreck about how important their brand is—they spend multiple paragraphs of this specifically targeted business document talking about how colors are neat—and literally never do they mention precisely why Pitt uses this precise blue and this precise gold, or name them as certain shades of the colors like "victory gold" or "pride blue" or some other cursory dumb crap athletic departments do. Here's how Pitt addresses its color choices, and I promise I haven't altered a word.
The University has adopted the collegiate colors blue and gold. The tones of these two colors have evolved over the years, but our loyalty to Pitt blue and gold transcends centuries of time. Even though our institutional identity contains these colors and they do have meaning to us, to our alumni family, and to the outside world, there is endless opportunity to use harmonizing color palettes in pieces where Pitt's graphic marks reside. Good design, with thoughtful color palette selections, can really enhance the meaning of the University brand by heightening visual expression through color.
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Let's be clear: Pitt doesn't really give a good god damn what its blue and yellow look like, they call it "evolution" like it's something God Himself (or at the very least a force of nature like Hugh Green or Guy Fieri) dictated, and not the work of some idiot administrator tinkering with levels in Photoshop and calling it a day.
And again, the end result doesn't even merit a branded name. I'm guessing whoever was tasked with naming these colors for Pitt ended up falling asleep halfway through the exercise and dragging everyone else who tried to save him/her into the pit of narcoleptic disaster; think the Tutankhamen Curse, but you get to wake up and walk away and use your life to do better things than try to name Pitt's Unisom Blue and World's First Forgettable Gold. Wait, no: Unisom is bright. Congratulations, Pitt: you're sleepier than sleeping pills.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Pitt is bringing back the Script Pitt in full force, so I can't hate on them too much. It's probably the greatest script logo in college sports, better than Michigan State's "State" jerseys, more ubiquitous than the Bama "A," with better cultural currency than Florida's "Gators" mark. So, naturally, Pitt decided to go away from that and just wear dumb block letters and this horrific thing for almost 20 years. Dan Marino didn't die for this!
It's a mountain cat! Definitely a unique concept in collegiate sports in Pennsylvania State!
If the Panthers were still wearing the Block Pitt, Pat Narduzzi would have taken the Nebraska job. I can't prove that I'm right, but... I'm right.
Oh, and those two-tone shoes ol' boy punter is wearing?