College football is getting dangerously close and my body is ready. Growing up in Alabama makes you crave college football all year round, and live and die by in during the fall. By this time every single year, my mind can only really think of the pigskin. I need the CBS 2:30 p.m. kickoff intro music in my ears more than I need oxygen.
So when college football teams decide to start teasing new uniforms, or big match-ups that will happen later in the season, I get a bit too excited. With my alma mater Mississippi State dropping their revamped 1998 throwbacks and the Florida Gators all black uniforms today it must be new uniform day for college football teams.
I’ll step aside from my biases surrounding Mississippi State and start off with the Florida Gators. Florida jumped on the Jordan Brand bandwagon a few years ago and they’ve done a fine job with a top tier classic uniform design. They haven’t strayed away from the classic orange helmets, and didn’t tweak the stripes of their classic uniforms too much. All in all, Jordan Brand has done a wonderful job with the Florida Gators uniforms.
This, to the best of my knowledge, is the first time that Jordan has brought a brand new color scheme to the Swamp. The blackout version of the classic Gators uniforms seems like a good idea in theory. I’m always in the camp that blackout uniforms are sick until you get on the field and get absolutely trounced by Alabama (looking at you, Georgia).
The blackout uniforms will make their official debut against the Arkansas Razorbacks November 4th in the Swamp. Not a bad game to break these bad boys out since they’re not playing Georgia that week, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s the best game to wear them. I’d be more inclined to see these the next week when they travel to Baton Rouge to play LSU, but it’d stink to not see the blackout uniforms at home.
Overall the blackout uniforms look nice on social media, including the matte black helmet which I believe is a great touch. We’ll see how they turn out on the field in November for the Florida Gators.
Just a few hours later, after a few days of teasing, the Mississippi State Bulldogs released their 1998 throwback uniforms celebrating the 25th anniversary of their SEC West championship that year. Mississippi State has been known to have some rough uniforms, well, some flat out bad uniforms over recent years. Finally, Adidas has stepped up their game to give the fanbase what they want.
I went to school at State when Joe Moorhead was the head coach there, and let me tell you, the matte maroon helmets were not it. The uniforms had no swag, and when your main colors are maroon and white, you really have to be creative to have good uniforms.
Luckily with these 1998 throwbacks, they didn’t change a single thing except the old Nike logo is now an Adidas logo. Literally everything stayed the same except for the logo and the material used. This how how every sports team should make their throwbacks. No changes, just updated material.
Sure, I’m biased because I’ve been begging for my school to update their uniforms, but you can’t look me dead in the eyes and tell me these new uniforms aren’t at least good.
Football is almost in the air, I can feel it. It must be new uniform day for college football teams and my body can’t wait much longer for the season to show up.
