Who says the jerseys don’t matter?
College football jerseys and helmets are the substance of a school’s appearance, the brand of a sharp team. Some may be flashier than others, such as the University of Miami’s, while others more conservative, like the Nebraska Cornhuskers’.
Either way, there is more to a school’s get-up than meets the eye.
Think for a second of a few teams in college football that you like; perhaps you followed them growing up as a kid — And then ask yourself if the team’s jerseys or helmets had anything to do with it. From Ohio State’s tradition of buckeye helmet stickers to — dare I mention — USC’s bright, sunny colors, each team brings to the table its own unique jersey style and appearance that embodies their school’s heritage.
Call them tradition, call them threads, call them irrelevant, call them what you’d like. Jerseys are a reflection of a college football program’s past and a symbol of a school’s tradition, as well as its current status.
Take Penn State for example. The team wears a very lackluster, plain blue jersey with plain white pants and a boring, plain white helmet with a blue stripe down the center that shouts “old school.” This traditional, or rather too traditional look, represents its program to a T.
The coach, Joe Paterno, is 83 years old and didn’t see change in his program until he let his assistants finally take over most of the coaching a few years ago. Add 811 all-time wins, sixth most in NCAA history, and a legendary coach who plans to stay in his position into the mix, and you have a program that shows no signs of changing.
Then notice Oregon, if you haven’t already. Their heinous Nike jersey combinations are harder to guess than how the team will actually play, flaunting four different helmets last season and sporting duck wings on the shoulders of an all-white jersey in its season opener. Oregon’s jerseys change nightly, and they portray a program with a flashy, West Coast style of play and an unconvential spread offense comfortably.
But the jersey does more for a football team than portray its attributes and traditions. It can impact a team’s play, too.
The entire nation witnessed this phenomenon last year on Halloween night when South Carolina came to town to face the Vols in Knoxville.
The rumor was spreading like wildfire on message boards, amongst students and faculty and even the players themselves: “The Vols are pulling out black jerseys this Saturday.”
But this is UT! What about the tradition, the orange and the old white helmets?
The wounded Volunteers were 3-4 on the year, coming off a heart-breaking two-point loss to then No. 2-ranked Alabama. The team was going to need a little something extra to defeat the 22nd-ranked Gamecocks at night. The answer was not going to be drawn up with X’s and O’s, and it certainly was not going to be the passing game either.
And in a stunning display, with the roar of an utterly surprised crowd that had seen orange during pregame warmups, the Volunteers ran through the T in a way they hadn’t all season: in black and with the game already won.
What happened that night was both methodical and beautiful. The Vols, clad in black, forced turnovers all over the field in front of an ear-shattering crowd for most of the first quarter. South Carolina was rattled from the gates and never had a chance.
Mother Nature even granted her approval of the jersey switcha-roo with a light drizzle, causing Stephen Garcia and Co. to handle the football like it was a hot turkey, fresh out of the oven. All this can be accredited to the energy and momentum created when the players took the field in their tantalizing new uniforms.
Unfortunately for UT fans, the black jerseys were introduced during the Kiffin regime, and it doesn’t look like the newest coach is looking to change any tradition here, so don’t look for them on the field again anytime soon.
Regardless, Tennessee’s all orange jerseys with white orange-striped bottoms are as classy and traditional as any football suit in America, and I think it’s safe to say that they’re here to stay.
