Sports Illustrated changes Baylor’s black jerseys to green, is there an explanation?

Ben Cornfield | November 29, 2012 at 11:07 pm | 0 Comments

Baylor Bears cornerback Joe Williams (22) celebrates after a goal line stop in the fourth quarter against the Kansas State Wildcats at Floyd Casey Stadium. The Bears beat the Wildcats 52-24. (Matthew Emmons-US PRESSWIRE)

Baylor’s win over Kansas State was indeed noteworthy. The Bears slaughtered the nation’s No. 1 team at the time, becoming the first sub-.500 program to beat a national No. 1 in college football history.

Above is one of the iconic photos from the Bears’ signature win, originally run by US Presswire. In it, Baylor is depicted as they appeared on the football field: Standard gold helmets gleaming well above a shadowy and grayish-green grass field in the late evening.

And sporting a set of special edition black jerseys commemorating the night’s big-time, nationally televised match-up.

Most of the time, teams break out unique sets of jerseys in order to market to potential recruits, and, admittedly, the black threads are slick. However, the upset win was most assuredly far more impressive to the prep stars watching.

However, recruits and fans alike looking the game up in Sports Illustrated would have had no idea that Baylor had gone with the special blacks, but the sports media magazine inexplicably changed the colors in the picture from black to green.

When reached for comment by Deadspin, Sports Illustrated played dumb, claiming the color change had been an “error” and that they would absolutely run a correction in its next issue — except for the fact that the game was played two weeks ago. Sports Illustrated thus had a week to rectify the situation with an apology or correction for the “error” but chose not to take it.

Interesting, but we’ll leave it up to you. Take a look at what was run in the magazine, and let us know if you think it was an inappropriate change for absolutely no reason, or what SI was even thinking in the first place (Hint: Take a look at the brighter, blurrier grass as well as the jerseys).

Let us know in the comments below!