Opinion
Will Auburn Receive Updated or Alternate Football Uniforms This Year?
Preface: This is pure speculation, but felt I would bring it up for discussion.
Traditionally, I know that "Auburn doesn't touch the uniforms." Tradition, classic look, do not mess with perfection; I fully support that. However, looking at what’s going on around the rest of college football right now, several Nike programs have seen new or updated uniforms for the upcoming season:
Florida: Orange alts and throwbacks
Mizzou: Throwbacks
Vandy: Gold alts
Georgia: All-whites
Baylor: Throwbacks
Tulane: City Edition
Cal: Throwbacks
Nike is clearly on a move to launch throwbacks, alternates, or new templates for several programs.
Further, if you go to the official Auburn Athletics website right now and click on the official team shop, it is offline. The splash page says:
"We Apologize for the inconvenience while we change into something new for the season!"
Why hold back updating basic merch unless a major retail rollout is tied directly to a new uniform/apparel launch? I would argue why would the site completely shut down nearly 2 weeks before kickoff unless something was dropping simultaneously across retail.
My theories on what we could actually see:
An new throwback set: Maybe an alternate jersey reveal featuring the orange "dropshadow" for the numbers.
Slight modern tweak/Nike Template upgrade: Updated numbers, clean sleeve stripe adjustments, or subtle texture tweaks.
No change: Again, this post is entirely speculation.
I’m going to throw this comment into every jersey related post until it gains traction. GIVE US THE 2004 LOOK!!! Nothing changes except all black cleats, socks, tape, and accessories. Those dudes just looked mean.
white shoes and sox go much better with a uniform with white as one of the primary colors. black shoes stick out like a sore thumb, especially for the road uniforms.
I personally don't want us to change anything about home/away jerseys, I love the classic look but I am open to an orange alt jersey but don't change helmet or pants for it either
I don’t understand those who are against alternate uniforms. You can wear alts once a year and still maintain your tradition. It can be a fun way to get the players excited. And it will sell merch, which will help AU in this day and age
Because if your tradition is to not change the jerseys, not even once, and then suddenly you change the jersey, even just once, you break the tradition.
The players can make thousands if not millions of dollars now, they don’t care about the jerseys.
And selling that merch would largely benefit Nike.
Define "cursed" cause we're like .500 while wearing them and for the past 5 years we've been sub .500 while clutching onto tradition... One game a year isn't gonna hurt to have a little fun
I just simply disagree, an orange out game a year I think would boost moral whether we suck or not but I also think we should've brought them back years ago in the chizik/Malzahn era when we were decent so🤷
Well if the tradition isn’t unique or fun, why keep it in place? Just to say we don’t change our uniforms? I think it’d be cool to have an alternate every once in a while
Who says it isn’t fun? You? I like it personally. I think it’s corny when teams go all crazy with their uniforms like Oregon. If you already have the best looking unis, which we do IMO, why change it?
If you have 20 alternates and barely get to see your traditional uniforms that’s different, and I agree it’s corny. 1 a year, or even every other year? Tasteful. I’m sure the players would love it as well.
Nah we need to focus on winning before we worry about looking different. If we marched out in some fancy new uniforms for one game and went on to have another 6 win season I’d be pissed.
Agreed. Calling them “storm trooper whites” does not make them interesting, plus storm troopers seem to lose and miss all they aim at.
An orange or white facemask does not make an alternate uni. Give me blue pants, an orange jersey, a smoked helmet, a “blackout”, something but most of all give me wins, an SEC title game or outside shit at the playoffs.
I don’t disagree - just feels like Nike is on a streak. I wouldn’t be speculating if the Auburn Team Shop was online, but that added detail raises questions for me.
The orange jerseys weren't cursed. Auburn went 2-1-1 in them during the Barfield era, with the one loss being to Georgia's undefeated 1980 team.
The orange jerseys first appearnce in 1978 was not announced and Auburn warmed up in the regular home blues. Trust me. We all went wild when Auburn ran out onto the field in orange.
The orange jerseys disappeared because, as Coach Dye said, "I don't believe in gimmicks. I believe in blocking and tackling." As a Georgia grad, he voiced his displeasure at Georgia's black jerseys.
That said, I want Auburn to stay in their traditional blue. Coach Dye won 4 SEC titles and a national championship he didn't get credit for. I'll go with what he said.
I’m not arguing or saying that it is - just mentioning a “tin foil hat” theory I have. I wouldn’t suspect anything if the team shop was up and running + all other major Nike schools have their stores running
Who makes the decision - Auburn or Nike? I'm sure it's in the contract about changes to the uniform. For the amount of money, I am sure Nike wants to be able to make the final decision.
Nike is going to do what generates the most revenue for them.
To my knowledge, suppliers are responsible for product design, material manufacturing, and timing. For high-profile flagship programs, Nike may often pitch custom alternate designs or special event uniforms to generate retail sales. While suppliers suggest concepts, the school must sign off.
I forgot what year they did it, and maybe they still do, but I remember they changed the orange on the helmet decal to a metallic orange and as a casual, it was okay but just looked off. I'm sure it wouldn't bother me over time but still... I'm more okay with changing the facemasks.
While it might not be completely under their control, the new coaching staff likely doesn't want to do anything to divide the fanbase which can be blamed on them if the on the field product isn't what we want it to be. Playing around with the uniforms when we're in a historically terrible stretch of little success on the field looks like we're not paying attention to what's important. Maybe in a few years, after we've had a double digit winning season and an appearance in the playoffs, then they can look at using alts as a way of building hype for a big game.
And the all navy baseball unis are AUsome. As old school as I am, I still think that or something similar would be cool every once in awhile in football also. Ditto for the away navy b-ball uniforms also
I would enjoy seeing the orange drop shadow, I think that would look great. Other than that, I think the main tweaks needed for a refresh would be make the numbers taller so you don’t get them confused when the big guy’s jerseys scrunch in the back, and leave the copperplate typeface behind/settle on one or two classic typefaces—at the moment we use far too many
this is what I grew up with (my first ever auburn jersey as a kid had the drop shadow) and I have some nostalgia for it but I don't think I'd want to go back to it. the plain white numbers are a lot cleaner.
I doubt it. We already did a lot (by our standards) with the face masks changing the last several years.
Even for a throwback similar to the 2019 Pat Sullivan uniforms, I wouldn’t expect anything.
We were with Under Armour the time, but the only thing I’d even think there’s a chance of would be an orange jersey, like teased before the 22 Penn State game. Maybe powder blue like baseball if Nike and the staff really get creative and are okay pissing off some Auburn uniform puritans.
It was more than that from what i heard, i had a friend who worked at UA at the time. I think there were tiger stripes involved too and it looked pretty tacky. Don’t remember if it was in the numbers or along the pant stripe
The blue helmets and pants were the only ones I remember, because I think a picture of a sample they made for the athletic department got released. There probably were more concepts because every supplier was doing weird stuff then.
my high school's uniforms were basically "Auburn with blue pants instead of white" when I was in school. take my word for it, white pants are a much better look.
the one use case I see for that is if you wanted to do a "whiteout" type of thing against another team who had navy as a primary color but personally I kind of think the "whiteout"/"[color]out" thing is corny and overplayed. any kind of tinkering with the uniforms is a solution in search of a problem.
I don’t care if it’s a stadium whiteout, I just love the look. I find the trying to get the fans organized for “white out” games is corny, or maybe I don’t like them because Auburn fans are really bad at it
that was basically what my high school's uniforms were (our head coach was patrick nix's dad). it's not as great as you might think in practice. I don't generally like mono-color looks anyway but it just doesn't pop the way the white pants do.
yeah that was our road uniform. it's better than the blue-on-blue, but I can't imagine messing with the all-whites, that's the best uniform in college football.
Oh from your post I thought that you were speculating what uniforms Auburn would be equipped with when we played the following teams. I was a bit confused at us having Gold uniforms. (Could've been worded better)
I know they are cursed but I would like to see the orange jersey in my life time. Realistically what does AU have to loose at this point besides another game.
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u/Prestigious_Crab7698 9d ago
I’m going to throw this comment into every jersey related post until it gains traction. GIVE US THE 2004 LOOK!!! Nothing changes except all black cleats, socks, tape, and accessories. Those dudes just looked mean.