Earlier this week, Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork went on statewide Head to Head Radio and discussed things such as financials and uniforms. In addition to confirming that the Powder Blues would be back, Bjork shared that Ole Miss was looking to nearly double its current $2.05m deal with Nike. The fact that Adidas pays MSU more than Nike pays Ole Miss was a major argument I used in this article, so of course I was intrigued by this. Yesterday, Head to Head did a similar, albeit recorded, interview with Mississippi State AD Scott Stricklin. Unfortunately, that interview was not as interesting and no unknown information was revealed from it. However, curious as to a couple of topics, I shot a couple of tweets at Scott and he was nice enough to respond:
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One of the great offseason debates among Mississippi State fans that has popped up in recent years is one of the official uniform supplier. Many clamor for the old slanted "MSU" logo and the dignity of being a Swoosh school. Others assert that Adidas is the best thing for State.
When Jackie Sherrill was replaced by Sylvester Croom in 2004, Mississippi State AD Larry Templeton left longtime supplier Nike behind in favor of Russell Athletic. This move meant that the slanted "MSU" logo could no longer be used on the helmet, because Nike owned it, as explained here. 5 years later, Croom was fired and Dan Mullen was hired. New AD Greg Byrne took this opportunity to completely rebrand the athletic department, introducing new logos, workmark, font, and supplier in Adidas. Adidas's tenure has been filled with alternate uniforms, TechFit jerseys, and controversial bats and profane shirts for the baseball program. Some of these controversial events have caused many to call for MSU to ditch Adidas and go back to Nike. Here's why we shouldn't, and won't, do that: $$$$$$$$$$ In its 4th year of uni tracking, the MSU Uni Tracker has officially joined Twitter!!! This is something that I have always thought would be a good idea, and so far it has been. Twitter provides a new way for fans to find the uni tracker and engage with it.
One of the early things that the Twitter account has accounted for is more comments from fans. Several have mentioned their approval or disapproval of certain uniforms and have given ideas for future uniforms or uniform concepts. Those ideas have inspired the following concept unis: a dark gray DWS 100, a gold DWS 100, a light gray DWS 100, and a light gray Nike "What If". I'm looking forward to all of the advantages Twitter will bring to the uni tracking experience come this fall. You can follow the account at @hailstateunis There's less than 100 days left until Mississippi State kicks off its 2015 football season at Southern Miss on September 5th. With the season inching closer and closer, more and more information is coming out about the uniforms for the 2015 season.
It has been known for a while that the DWS 100 unis will return as the regular uniforms. We still don't know exactly what they will look like, but at this point my best guess is: same jerseys with no oversized logo on the pants. However, as it comes to alternates, the past week has given us some hints in the form of the "What to wear" schedule: LSU- Whiteout Northwestern St.- upper deck Maroon lower level White Troy- upper deck White lower level Maroon La Tech- Stripeout Kentucky-Blackout Alabama-True Maroon Egg Bowl-Maroon The first thing that stands out from that list is the whiteout against LSU. I'd be very much in favor of us forcing LSU to wear purple. What a great matchup that would be: In 2015, when the DWS 100 unis take over full time (confirmed by Scott Stricklin on Twitter as recently as yesterday), don't expect them to be the only jerseys the Bulldogs take the field in. In this post, I will give a couple of possibilities as to what alternate unis the Bulldogs might wear in 2015.
Obviously, you can expect Egg Bowl jerseys for the 5th year in a row. Version 3.0 of the maroon jerseys with gold accents should hit the field this fall, and it's anyone's guess as to what they will look like. My concept, seen below, would keep the DWS 100 stripes and reuse the chrome gold helmet from 2013. Now, in the 4 years that the Bulldogs have worn Egg Bowl uniforms, they have never been consistent with that year's regular uniforms. So don't expect them to look exactly like this. Just hope that they do. It was known coming into the 2014 season that the 2012 version of the ribbon-stripe uniforms were in their last year. What we didn't know is that they would already be overtaken by the end of the season.
Last March, the Bulldogs announced throwback jerseys for the 100th anniversary of Davis Wade Stadium. The jerseys were based on the late 90s and early 2000s Jackie Sherill-era uniforms, with double white sleeve stripes with black outlines. The jerseys initially had "Hail State" on the front, but the NCAA ruled it must be replaced with the "Mississippi State" wordmark logo, which vastly improved the look of the uniform in my opinion. The "DWS 100" unis, as they soon came to be known, were originally planned to be worn against Southern Miss. However, the uniforms were popular amongst fans, and were subsequently worn in wins vs then top-10 teams LSU, Texas A&M, and Auburn. After being worn in three huge wins (and being featured in two Sports Illustrated covers), the jerseys skyrocketed in popularity and became the go-to jerseys for the Bulldogs. Adidas claimed not to be able to produce white versions until the next season, so the regular (ribbon stripe) white jerseys were worn for the remainder of the season. The regular (ribbon stripe) maroon jerseys were worn twice, as opposed the 7 times (all 7 were wins) that the DWS 100 jerseys were worn. The Bulldogs did finally break out white versions of the DWS 100 unis for the Orange Bowl. Scott Stricklin, Mississippi State Athletic Director, has said that the DWS 100 uniforms, or a version of them, will be the regular uniforms in 2015. This is not a surprise, given the popularity of the DWS 100 unis and the fact that the Bulldogs were getting new uniforms in 2015 anyway. The question is, what exactly will they look like? Will they be the exact same as the DWS 100 unis, right down to the oversized logo on the pants? Or will there be slight differences? And if so, to what extent? There is one thing I can confirm right now about 2015: the uni-tracker will have a new template. Created by user _taylorc on the CCSLC, the template shows the Adidas "shockwave" pattern that has been on their TechFit jerseys since the 2013 season. The pattern appears on both DWS 100 unis as well as the 2013 and 2014 Egg Bowl jerseys. This template, used below, will be used throughout the 2015 season on this blog. Hopefully Prescott will still be available for use at MSU next year. So, here are some of the options Mississippi State has for 2015: First off, the most likely option: no change. The DWS 100 unis return exactly as they were in 2014. Black outlines, oversized logo, and all. Many know the story of the slanted “MSU” logo that Nike owns, not allowing Mississippi State to use it to this day. A new logo set was created in 2009 and is in use currently. Mississippi State is in a contract with Adidas until 2020, so this is strictly conceptual, but I put this together today to show what Nike might do if it got Mississippi State back.
The design is based on the DWS 100 unis from this year, which themselves are based on MSU’s Nike unis of the late 1990s. Black is removed from the uniforms, something I hope happens with the current uniforms. Gray is added in place of it, and as a result, the sleeve stripes mirror Kansas State’s. A similar striping pattern adorns the pants and white helmet. The slanted “MSU” logo is added back to the helmets; three different designs are used. The first is a maroon helmet with a regular, shiny finish and a white facemask. It would be worn only with the maroon jerseys. The second is a maroon helmet with a matte finish and a white facemask. It would be worn only with the white jerseys. The final helmet would be white, with a maroon facemask and maroon double stripe. It would be worn only with the white pants, but with both jerseys. A maroon Egg Bowl jersey with gold accents is also included. Also posted here: What if- Mississippi State Switched back to Nike |
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