Rams will wear all yellow this Thursday

Yellow is the new orange.

Rams give mixed reviews to color rush uniforms

Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/id/121172/rams-give-mixed-reviews-to-color-rush-uniforms

EARTH CITY, Mo. –Officially, the uniforms the St. Louis Rams will wear in Thursday night’s “color rush” game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a color Nike has dubbed yellow gold.

But when receiver Tavon Austin caught his first glimpse of the uniforms, he couldn’t help but find himself harkening back to his college days at West Virginia.

“Yeah, definitely, we used to call it the gold rush back at West Virginia,” Austin said. “It feels good to be fully back in the uniform I started in.”

This will give you an idea of what Austin will look like on Thursday.

To be sure, nobody was more excited about the new uniform than Austin. As is always the case when it comes to football fashion though, the Rams’ new duds are polarizing among both the fanbase and the players and coaches in the locker room.

Rams linebacker James Laurinaitis, for example, has been pushing to wear the old blue and white Rams throwbacks but has yet to see that come to fruition among the many different uniform combinations the Rams have worn.

“I just think we did it for Tavon,” Laurinaitis said, laughing. “I think we wanted to look like West Virginia for Tavon. I guess when you’re a playmaker you get a lot of pull around here. I’ve been petitioning for blue and whites around here for a long time. I can’t get blue and whites. Tavon comes here and they call it the West Virginia yellow or whatever.”

Laurinaitis has also seen and heard the many jokes about what Thursday night’s game will look like to those watching. With the Buccaneers wearing all red and the Rams wearing all yellow, some have taken to calling it the “Condiment Bowl” featuring ketchup versus mustard. Others have called it the “Fruit Bowl” with apples taking on bananas.

Quarterback Case Keenum said the short turnaround between last Sunday’s game against Detroit to Thursday night hasn’t allowed him much time to plan his outfit.

“I didn’t get much chance to study them,” Keenum said. “We had our equipment guys in there. The equipment guys, it wasn’t their best look, I’ll say that. Some of those guys didn’t fill out the jersey quite like some of the guys in the locker room. Not to dis on them too bad, but they did their best.”

For his part, Rams coach Jeff Fisher is just happy that he doesn’t have to color rush as well.

“I said this to the team and I’ve oftentimes said this before, I’m just glad it’s not baseball where I have to wear the uniform as well,” Fisher said.

As silly as it might sound from the outside, players actually do enjoy the chance to put on some new threads and look a little different. The old “look good, feel good, play good” theory might actually have something behind it, according to Austin.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Austin said. “You are so used to your old uniforms so when you put something else on, you want to look good in it, it definitely gives you a little juice. I didn’t have a say in this one but it worked into my favor. I look like I’m back in the WV gold and I just feel good playing in it once again.”