As I’m sure you’re well aware, Upper Deck has been limited to producing collegiate football cards since 2011 when they gained the exclusive NCAA license but no longer held an NFL license. In this time we’ve seen Upper Deck produce some of the same brands we were used to—just with players pictured in their collegiate gear. This included the same typical checklists; you had your big name rookies, the scrub rookies to fill a checklist, your current NFL stars, and then a few NFL legends.
Upper Deck has decided to break the mold and do something relatively unheard of to this point: Build a checklist set catering to the collegiate game exclusively. In the upcoming UD Collegiate Legends set you will still have your traditional mix of NFL rookies and stars in their collegiate uniforms, but you will also get an unprecedented checklist filled with collegiate stars the NFL has long forgotten. Perhaps the fact that the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners sets were so well received by fans of those respective schools had something to do with UD focusing more on college collectors.
If you ask an NFL fan who Ron Dayne was, they’ll say some mediocre guy from the Giants. If you ask an NCAA fan, they’ll recall how Dayne used to ram the red W helmet of the Wisconsin Badgers through opposing linebackers on the way to winning the Heisman. Jason White? Oh, that guy who had weak knees and couldn’t stick with a team? No, I mean the best football player in the nation (circa 2003) as the Heisman Award winner of the Oklahoma Sooners. I could go on and on.
The set’s checklist is littered with names like these, and college collectors are going to eat up every bit of cardboard they can get their hands on. Players also included in this release are Gino Torretta, Todd Marinovich, Brian Bosworth, Ty Detmer, Danny Wuerrfel, and many other “gods” of the college gridiron. You’ll also get the legends and stars of the NFL who also shined in college like Aaron Rodgers, Steve Young, Earl Campbell, and Adrian Peterson. Of course, there are the big rookies like Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, and Julio Jones.
It will be interesting to see how this set is received once it hits shelves and how singles do on the secondary market. Upper Deck has proven that collegiate cards can establish and maintain value with 2010’s Exquisite XRCs and 2011 SP Authentic. It’s also been proven that collegiate uniform cards can stand the test of time for those “NFL scrubs.” A great example is a 1993 Classic Four Sport Rick Mirer autograph, which recently sold for $100. Not too shabby for a guy who many would label an NFL draft bust from almost two decades ago. .