CORVALLIS -- Lots of leftovers from the Oregon State rebranding event Monday night, and because this is such a hot topic, I thought I’d go ahead and throw all the extras on the blog.

First off, I didn’t put this in

, but I personally felt the highlight from the entire presentation was when athletic director Bob De Carolis, in explaining his initial trepidation at

(the logo, the color scheme, the typeface) said that he gulped, then agreed to it. Then De Carolis yelled out, “CAN I GET A YOLO?!”

YOLO, in case you didn’t know, stands for “You Only Live Once.” It is a phrase commonly used by teenage girls, and I’m guessing De Carolis was the first Division-I athletic director to use it at a public press event.

This was the media’s first opportunity to catch up with most of the football team since everyone was in Texas, and it was obvious that players are excited for spring football to start (they are also probably excited for the end of 5 a.m. workouts). Rashaad Reynolds told me that while players are looking forward to the new gear — the guess is that some of it will be implemented in the spring — guys have been hungry to get back to work since the bowl game got over. And so, with that in mind ...

Interview with cornerback Rashaad Reynolds

Q: First of all, I can't believe spring football is so soon. Two weeks, and we're all back at it.

A:

I know, we can’t wait.

Q: Let's talk about these new uniforms — what do you think?

A:

I love them. I like the feeling of them. It’s a whole different look but they also kept the Oregon State tradition.

Q: Coach Riley told me you guys got to see some of the helmets in the middle of the season, so it wasn't as top secret as some of us thought. What was the reaction when you guys first started to see the new stuff?

A:

The helmets, we all liked them. There were little things that we felt could be a little different, and Nike actually looked at that and listened to that, and took our ideas, so that was cool.

Q: These black ones look like the throwback ones from the Civil War a couple years ago.

A:

They are, they’re the Giant Killer ones. It was a big deal for all of us, and you could see that tonight, because we all had big smiles on our faces.

Q: It seems a little crazy to me that uniforms have become such an important part of our sports culture. But I think they're really important to athletes, to recruits — do you agree with that? Why?

A:

Oh yeah. As far as athletes go, when you feel like you look good, you play good. As far as recruits, younger generations like new things. New technology, and things like that. For us to have some of the best technology out there with Nike, with new uniforms, interchangeable uniforms, things like that, it’s going to help with recruiting.

Q: Have you heard from any of the players who just left, guys like Jordan Poyer or Markus Wheaton — are they jealous?

A:

Not yet, but I’m sure I will soon. I talked to James Dockery a little bit, and of course they’re going to be a little jealous, especially when you get it as soon as they leave.

Q: Of the entire rebrand, what's your single favorite part?

A:

I like the orange helmet. The orange helmet is sweet. And also I like the all-white uniforms, those are nice.

Interview with running back Storm Woods

Q: Well, you got to be a fan tonight sitting in the crowd, what did you think?

A:

It was electrifying. I loved all of it. I especially loved that Brandin Cooks was up there in the orange one. I think that made the orange one my favorite. I definitely like the little things about it: “Beaver Nation” being stitched in the back of the jersey, it’s the last thing you see when you put it on. The socks say “Go Hard” and “Hip Hip Hooray” … that’s something that I love.

Q: Why does this stuff matter so much, to athletes, to recruits? This is huge, the uniform craze, across the nation.

A:

As an athlete you always want to look good. Definitely you want to play hard, first, but looking good matters. You always want to go out wearing the nicest stuff. That’s why lots of people like Oregon. I think we’re definitely in the same boat with them now, with these uniforms.

Every team at Oregon State will have new uniforms starting in August.

Interview with Todd Van Horne, vice president and creative director for Nike football and baseball

Q: Obviously a really positive response from everyone here. You said that it's not often teams and universities get a chance to "hit the reset button," — why is it important to do, and why now?

A:

This is the courage of Oregon State athletics. They wanted to equally represent all sports, and a new brand and a new face, gives them an opportunity to do that. And new uniforms with that, it’s what Bob (De Carolis) talked about: It sets a different standard for the rest of the nation.

Q: How long have you worked at Nike?

A:

22 years

Q: So Brandin Cooks was just telling me, "Look good, feel good play good, it's a real thing" — in 22 years at Nike, do you think that's true, do most athletes buy into that?

A:

Yeah, I do, and I think for Nike, we always start with innovation. It’s always about the performance of the materials, and how it works with the body. Our Nike Sports Research Lab, the information they get us, and we combine it with all the testing from the athletes. You get that innovation and then you put it together with inspiration and you get those words that you hear from athletes. It makes you proud, because that’s your job.

Q: You said in the presentation that Oregon State is one of four schools getting a complete rebrand — who are the other three schools?

A:

I can’t tell you, it hasn’t been released yet.

Q: How often does this (rebranding) happen at a school or an athletic department? Is it becoming more common?

A:

The Nike partner schools that we work with, it’s them coming to us and asking, "Hey, you guys have built the Nike brand to represent these values and this national prominence, can you help us do that?" So it is very rare that you have a university that has the courage to do this all at once and do this with all sports. Sometimes you get, "Hey, we want to have consistency of color" and nothing else changes, but this is the full meal deal, and that’s powerful.

Q: In leading schools through this, do you talk about potential negative reaction from fans, and how you deal with that? Do you worry about that, do you talk through it like a group therapy session of sorts?

A:

(Laughs) For us, I think it always comes back to us listening to the voice of the athlete. It’s the athletes who are putting on the uniform and representing their team, and that’s the thing that means the most to us. If they love it, and it represents what they want it to be, at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

Interview with OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis

Q: Were you worried about the reaction?

A:

In one sense, you can’t worry about the reaction at the outset. Like anything else, it grows on you. A lot of people didn’t like the OS when it first came out. You just do the best job you can, and hopefully it works.

Q: Is the OS gone now?

A:

No, the OS won’t be part of this piece for athletics, but retail will still be able to use it. How much people gravitate away from it, that’s up to them, but for athletics, we’ll be changing out the Beaver head on the football field, on the basketball court. We’ve got a whole laundry list of stuff that needs to be changed out … some of it we don’t know (how long it will take). On the back of every seat, we’ve got a Beaver head. Are you really going to change that all out? Are you really going to change out all the Beaver buttons? We’ll take it one step at a time.

Q: What was this process, which you said took two years, what was it like?

A:

If you go back to 2007, the last time we did the type font, the “OS” was really an accent piece, if you remember. The Beaver was still the ruler. And we said at that time, that’s the next step, to do something with the Beaver head. But remember, we didn’t do that with Nike, we were with an outside firm. But once we started talking and we got into this whole contract negotiation and this (rebranding) became an option, we were like, “Alright, we need to look at this.” And the more we talked, the more we got convinced that this was a good route to go down.

Q: A couple years ago at the BCS title game, Kirk Herbstreit talked about how this stuff matters to recruits — cool uniforms, new gear, lots of combinations. Is that something you see, is that something you agree with?

A:

They said it today on 1080 The FAN at 4 o’clock when they opened the show. They said, "You know, we really shouldn’t be talking about uniforms, but it matters to these kids." And it’s not just the student-athletes; I think it’s also for the general student body.

Q: I'm surprised you didn't model anything, or have Mike Riley up there. Why no coaches?

A:

(Laughs) That certainly would have turned the cheers into boos.

-- Lindsay Schnell; follow me