Blackout, Whiteout ... Color me confused

Saturday night's Big Ten  showdown at  Kinnick Stadium between Iowa and Michigan has been designated a "Blackout" game by the Hawkeyes marketing team.

The Iowa-Penn State game in Happy Valley on Sept. 26 was designated a "Whiteout" game by that school's marketing people.

While the white was rather obvious during the night game at Beaver Stadium, I'm not sure the black-clad fans attending this weekend's game won't fade into the background. Begging the question -- Why not a "Gold" game?

Then again, it's smarter to have a "Blackout" game when the temperature likely will be in the 40s or 50s and the sun has set, rather than the previous "Blackout" game this season when it was sunny and in the 80s for the Arizona tilt.

Call me old-fashioned, but whatever happened to fans simply wearing all the school's colors. Black and gold. Orange and blue. Green and orange. Red and black. Then again, when you're Penn State and sport the ugliest uniforms in the nation, you have to come up with some sort of marketing gimmick. Ladies and gentlemen, it's whites out tonight.

Not so with Iowa. The Hawkeyes colors are bold and intimidating. They're bad, if you catch my smack talk. If they remind people of the Pittsburgh Steelers, better  yet because there is no better franchise than the one in the Steel City and it has the solid ownership and Super Bowl trophies to prove it.

So, go ahead and wear your black Saturday night. Leave the gold at home. And, while the "Blackout" may get a few mentions by the ABC crew broadcasting the game, it really won't swing the outcome one way or another. Sure didn't help Penn State.

Of course, when I think about fans' attire at a football game, I always recall a late-season Tampa Bay-Green Bay game at Lambeau Field many years ago. As the opening kickoff was approaching, I recall looking in the stands and telling the person next to me that I was surprised there were that many orange-clad Buccaneers fans in the stands. My press box neighbor laughed and said the fans wearing orange were not Tampa Bay fans, but Green Bay fans wearing their hunting outfits to stay warm.

Even with all that orange scattered around Lambeau, the Packers managed to win the game.

I rest my case.