2016 Mid-Season Uniform Review

After what was a rather uneventful offseason, the first half of the 2016 football season has been quite the opposite.  A young team, along with a few other factors, has led to a good bit of on-field disappointment; the Bulldogs have a 2-4 record at the halfway point, with 4 ranked opponents left to play in November.  Off the field, Mississippi State Athletics Director Scott Stricklin announced that he would be taking the same position at Florida, creating a vacancy at the top of the athletic department; the search for a new Athletics Director is still ongoing.  The departure of Stricklin, who was very active on social media as well as a big proponent of Adidas, could certainly lead to some change in the Bulldogs’ uniforms.  However, if apparent front-runner John Cohen (another Adidas proponent) gets the job, expect the changes there to be minimal.

The Bulldogs’ football uniforms for the 2016 season have seen some welcome changes.  I called for some changes this past offseason, and, perhaps as a parting gift from Stricklin, the oversized M-State logo was removed from the pants and the black outlines were removed from the white jersey.  In this article, we’ll take a look at how the uniforms have been changed for this season and the future.

Pants
Following the popularity of the gray pants introduced last season, new white and maroon pants have been worn this season, with the following striping pattern:

White Pants: Maroon/Gray/Maroon
Maroon Pants: White/Gray/White
Gray Pants: Maroon/White/Maroon

Jerseys
This pattern sequence allows the jersey striping to be consistent and still keep from the DWS 100s the double white stripes on the maroon jersey and double maroon stripes on the white jersey.  The white jersey has already been updated with the new striping pattern.  The maroon jersey is the same as last season, but I expect it to be updated in the near future, hopefully for next season.

Helmets
The shiny maroon helmet has retained the design used for most of the 2015 season (Transparent banner M-State logo with no outline).  The only other helmet worn this year is a brand new one, the 19th different design worn since 2009, and the 4th different helmet color the Bulldogs have ever worn.  The silver helmet was worn for the first time with Patriots-inspired alternate jerseys; it was popular enough that it was worn again with the regular uniforms a few weeks later.

So, what other helmets will the Bulldogs wear in 2016?  Judging from photos posted by @hailstateEQ on twitter, we still have the white helmets at our disposal.  However, a rather disheartening rumor that has been given some credibility is that the matte maroon helmets will not be worn this year.  The fact that they weren’t worn at either LSU or BYU was odd; since they were debuted in 2011, the matte helmets have been worn sometime in the first 5 games.  Currently, we’re 6 games in and there’s no sign of them anywhere.  In addition, @zachphillips_9 on Twitter claims that the equipment team didn’t have space for both the silver and matte helmets, so the silver effectively replaced the matte.  It is very disheartening that we would get rid of what are, in my opinion, far and away our best helmets, regardless of the reason.  However, that would explain why the matte helmets were not worn at LSU or BYU, and why they may not be seen at all this season.  If we do still have them, I’d expect to see them this Saturday at Kentucky.  If not, then I guess we have our answer.

Alternates
The big alternate uniforms this season for the Bulldogs was the Patriots-inspired uniforms they wore vs UMass in Gillette Stadium.  Read more about those here.

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 (Second Half of the Season Preview
In the midst of all of these changes, the Bulldogs have worn 6 different combinations through the first 6 games for the first time in school history, breaking the 2012 record when they debuted the ribbon stripe uniforms with 5 different combos in the first 5 games.  Interestingly, the record previous to 2012 was 4 combos through 4 games in 2001, when the Bulldogs were experimenting with alternating white and maroon helmets.

So what will the Bulldogs wear for the rest of season?  Here’s the schedule for the final 6 games:

10/22: at Kentucky
10/29: Samford (Homecoming)
11/5: Texas A&M (Blackout)
11/12: at Alabama
11/19: Arkansas
11/26: at Ole Miss (Egg Bowl)

10/22: at Kentucky
This Saturday’s game at Kentucky is rather intriguing.  Kentucky has a really solid new uniform set this year.  They’ve worn 5 different combinations through 6 games; the Wildcats have worn matte blue (with both white and dark gray facemasks) and white helmets, blue, white, and dark gray jerseys, and blue and white pants.  One combination that the Wildcats have not worn yet in 2016 is all-blue; a home game vs. the Bulldogs might be the time to break it out.  They could also debut dark gray pants or helmets, or any other surprise alternates as they have the past few years.

The past five years, the Bulldogs have worn matte maroon helmets vs. Kentucky, winning every single time.  That’s why it would make sense to debut the matte helmets this weekend, if we still have them. 

However, if we don’t, which as discussed above is a real possibility, I’d say we should break out the all-whites and hope the Wildcats go all-blue for a “color rush” sort of matchup.  While that usually lends itself to a negative connotation given some of the unappealing NFL matchups, I think it would work in this instance.  Here’s a few different possibilities for this Saturday, including All-White vs All-Blue:

10/29: Samford (Homecoming)
For the past three homecoming games, the Bulldogs have gone all-maroon.  However, given that they wore all-maroon for the last home game (vs. Auburn), I think they should go with the maroon jersey and white pants vs. Samford.  The obvious helmet choice for this game would be shiny maroon, but I think it’d be a good opportunity to wear the white helmet at home.  Especially if we put something like a Flying-M decal on them… I’m a fan of white-maroon-white either way; it might bring back some bad memories of 2004-2008, but it doesn’t look bad.  White-Maroon-Maroon on the other hand…

11/5: Texas A&M (Blackout)
Texas A&M is the blackout game.  I expect to see the black jersey from last year return, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock to see either no special uniforms or an all new one.  Assuming that we do bring back the black jersey from last year, Silver-Black-Gray seems like the obvious uniform choice, given that the jersey numbers and stripe outlines are silver; it’d easily be the best look we’ve ever had with a black jersey. 

The same source that said the matte helmets were gone also mentioned that the white helmets might be worn with the black jersey with a black facemask and decals.  Unless we get a new black jersey with white accents instead of silver, this doesn’t seem very likely to me.  I’m still hoping for Silver-Black-Silver.

11/12: at Alabama
I doubt we do anything crazy at Alabama.  May be a good time to see the maroon pants on the road.  The last time we won in Tuscaloosa was 10 years ago in 2006, when we wore white-white-maroon.  Might be a good excuse to wear that combo for the first time in the current set.

11/19: Arkansas
I’d like to see Shiny-Maroon-Gray again for our last home game of the year.

11/26: at Ole Miss (Egg Bowl)
My dream Egg Bowl uni matchup is Matte-White-Gray vs Powder Blue-Red-Gray.  If we don’t have matte helmets, I’m okay with shiny helmets in their place.  But let’s make Maroon-White-Gray vs. PB-Red-Gray happen please.

Really don’t think we go back to gold accents this year.  Never worked on the road anyway.

That’s a recap of what the Bulldogs have worn so far in 2016 and a preview of what they might wear for the final 6 games.  Overall, this season has seen some much needed improvements to the uniforms.  Let’s hope that continues.