Skip to content
 
Uni Watch

Michigan State Football to Wear All-Black Uniforms vs. Indiana This Saturday

By

We often refer to the week surrounding Halloween as “Spooky Season,” a time when many colleges and some pro football teams break out black uniforms — some of those teams have black as an official color, but many do not — and since the BFBS trend is apparently not going away anytime soon, 2024 has seen about as many all-black uniforms being worn this week as in any other season. No team, it seems, is immune.

The Michigan State Spartans have thrown their entry into the Spooky Season arena, as they announced they will be wearing their “Black Shadows” uniform for Saturday’s B1G matchup with Indiana. If you haven’t been paying attention, Indiana is really good this season, compiling an 8-0 record and is tied for first place with No. 1 ranked Oregon in the B1G (and they’re ranked No. 13 overall).

So, of course, they released the obligatory video:

At least they didn’t introduce it with AC/DC.

Here are some additional looks in a foreboding setting:

Not really much of a look, eh? Fortunately, this will not be the first time this uniform has been worn, although it’s making its 2024 debut tomorrow. The Spartans sported these BFBS uniforms last season, and the result wasn’t good. They were crushed, 49-0, by Michigan at home. Granted, Michigan would go undefeated last year and win the Natty. But still, it was a beatdown. Hopefully they won’t be playing with fire against Indiana, who are as hot as any team right now.

Here’s what those uniforms looked like on the field last year:

No, the uniforms are not solid black, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell that, even from a close up shot. But the uniforms, which the team has nicknamed “Black Shadows” (hence the video and still photos in the shadows), actually has some Spartan green on it.

The helmet features a green Spartan head logo, but the green is so dark that it almost completely fades into the helmet.

Even under good lighting, the details are difficult to see. There is a “Greek key stripe” running from bumper to bumper in addition to the Spartan head logo.

The jerseys and pants also have green stripe patterns — Greek key stripes — which are present on the sleeve caps and down the pants legs — those are a little more visible.

Of course, while it would be nice to see the stripe patterns — and I rather like the unique Greek key stripe — at least the team had the good sense to use white numbers, since identifying the players is the primary function of the uniform.

You know my feelings on BFBS. But since it’s clearly not going away, if a team must wear a BFBS uniform, then wearing it in the week surrounding Halloween is probably the only acceptable time to do so.

Halloween may have been yesterday, but we can still expect a whole lot of black on the gridiron tomorrow.

And as I frequently point out, sometimes it’s best to judge a BFBS uniform solely as a uniform. To that end, both the Miami Hurricanes and Tennessee Vols, for example, do BFBS very well. MSU, on the other hand, does not. The Spartan green is simply too dark on the black uniforms. When almost every angle makes the uniform look solid black, then the design is a fail.

Hopefully last year’s uniform looked as dark as it did because the game with Michigan was under the lights. Tomorrow’s game against Indiana is a 3:30 (ET) kickoff, so a good chunk of the game should be played in daylight. Tomorrow’s forecast for East Lansing is for sunny skies and a high temperature of 56° — perfect for fall football.

Sparty has been very traditional in their uniform selection this year (wearing only school colors for their first eight games), so if this is the uniforms only appearance, despite being BFBS, I can let it slide. It’s the time of the season…Spooky Season.

What do you think of the Spartans BFBS unis? Fine if they only wear it once a season, or a design failure that should never see the field. Or somewhere in between?

 
  
 
Related Posts

UCF Knights Unveil 2024 “Space Game” Uniforms

Sunday Morning Uni Watch 2024: Week Five

Texas A&M Unveils New “Blackout” Uniforms for Saturday Night Game vs. LSU

Washington Huskies Unveil New Black Uniforms, Will Debut Friday Night

UMass Minutemen Unveil New Black Uniforms for 2024
Comments (23)

    Two days ago it was reported that Nike is upset at the Yankees for wearing non-Nike undershirts during the World Series and there’s not a peep about it on this site. Instead we get about 3,000 words on a purple Ravens helmet and a black MSU uniform. I miss Paul.

    It was a Ticker item a few days ago.

    link

    I apologize if I can’t cover every uniform story that appeals to you, but it wasn’t like it was ignored.

    While I don’t agree with the sentiment you’ve expressed, I do find many of the recent articles a bit long-winded. We definitely don’t need a recap of the “one shell rule” every single time a team plans to wear a non-standard helmet.

    I appreciate the sentiment, Charlie, but there are actually people who read this site on a sporadic basis, and may not be aware of the one-shell rule. Granted, I may expound on it a bit too much, but it’s still Jounalism 101 to explain things to readers who may not read the blog every day.

    I’ll try to keep stuff like this as short as possible going forward, but I still need to mention it.

    Thanks for responding Phil! If the choice is between appeasing grumpy readers vs. maintaining journalistic standards and educating newcomers, I can’t in good faith criticize you for prioritizing the latter!

    I’m on the fence on this one. the site has changed in having posts that focus on a particular team’s uniforms for an upcoming game.

    I love that these articles have a deeper dive and have lots of photos. Often things in the video have a single look or worse a hype video (which I refuse to watch).

    I am not sure I need to read the three stories today on Michigan State, Army, and Iowa. Given that MSU and Iowa have worn similar uniforms in the past this is less newsworthy.

    But that I said no one is forcing me or anyone to read them.

    Michigan State needs to bring back those wonky uniforms that had copper on them from about ten years ago.

    “What do you think of the Spartans BFBS unis?”

    They’re just as garbage as all the rest of them and the most wearying thing is the endless parade of mind-numbing hype videos and press releases from all these schools one after another celebrating their complete lack of ideas and originality.

    I like black uniforms normally or at least switching up looks and trying new things, but the dark green on the black is tough to see from a far, but I like the greek patterns they chose for the sleeves and pants. It’s still wild to me how much outrage people show over something that literally every team does, but the second a team does a throwback to some 1960’s uniform those same people just absolutely love it every single time…. feels like some people don’t even give a new look a chance

    I think people are just tired of the BFBS uniforms. When just a few schools did it (and it was a school color), it was kind of neat. I’ll even give Oregon a bye on it. But, when every school does it, the WOW factor has pretty much gone away. Or at least it has for me. It’s kind of like the 90’s trend of losing all the pants stripes in favor of just solid color pants (Tennessee, Nebraska, Washington, etc.). That trend, it seems, is coming back too. I guess what I am trying to say is…… Maybe these schools need to try some more original stuff than just throwing a solid black uniform out there because they want to keep up with the Jones’.

    I don’t disagree that it does seem like teams are running out of ideas on how to change up their looks week to week – and a case could be made that maybe teams don’t actually need to do this as much as they do, but this seems to be just how it is for nearly every school. One week a throwback, the next week iced out, the next week all black, the next week some inverse of their normal color schemes, the next week a more traditional look…. I don’t hate new and creative ideas and with all the changes there are bound to be many examples of bad looks as well – but I just don’t get all the hate on something that every school does and its just for one week, but what the heck do I know!

    BFBS? More like BS! Setting up a reminder to myself to be raking leaves at 3:30 tomorrow.

    Just please stop reporting on BFBS stories.
    Maybe this atrocious trend will just die out without the attention.
    These teams are excited to be featured on UniWatch for these bad moves but let’s deny them the publicity.

    That was my thought. I like dark green and black as a color combination, but not on uniforms.

    The jets shiny helmet stickers at least provided a little more contrast.

    I haven’t commented on here in a long time, but this thread seems like a good place to pick it back up.

    I, for one, love the more positive change in tone with Phil at the helm, and I love the in-depth breakdowns of (for example) every BFBS football uniform around Halloween season. Detailed analysis of uniform minutiae is exactly what got me into this hobby in the first place, and I’d hate to see it diminished.

    I don’t mean to sound condescending or self-righteous, but if there’s something on here that you don’t like, just skip it. I have no interest in Movies With Balls, so I didn’t read that post. If you feel the need to comment on a post you don’t like, saying that it shouldn’t exist because YOU don’t like it, that says a lot more about you than it does the post.

    Keep up the good work, Phil and Jim! The blog is better than ever!

Comments are closed.