When it comes to uniforms, the Louisiana State University Tigers are among the most traditional teams in college football. They’re one of the few schools who prefer to wear white jerseys at home, and for years would wear their classic gold/white/gold combo almost exclusively at home and on the road, usually mixing in their purple “home” jerseys for a non-conference game once a year. That’s changed a bit over the years, including this season, but still, and compared to numerous other programs, they’re still a gold/white/gold team for the most part.
That’s going to change this Saturday, when the Tigers take on the Vanderbilt Commodores. The team announced they’ll be debuting a new gold jersey for the night game in Death Valley. Here’s a look at that new top:
This won’t be the first time LSU has worn gold jerseys for a game, but you can count on one hand the number of times they’ve done so.
Saturday’s tilt will be just the fifth time the Tigers have ever worn gold jerseys. They previously did so in 1996 against Vanderbilt, 1997 against Notre Dame in the Independence Bowl, 1998 against Florida and 2016 against Mississippi State. LSU is 3-1 in those games, with the lone loss coming to Florida.
Here’s how they looked in 1996 vs. Vandy.
In that game, the Tigers wore their regular gold helmets and white stripeless pants. The jerseys roughly approximated the athletic gold color of their helmets.
In the 1997 Independence Bowl, the team again wore gold jerseys vs. the Fighting Irish.
In that game, the team paired their alternate white helmets and pants with gold jerseys that were more of a metallic gold. Those featured white university block fonts, with purple block shadow.
They’d next break out gold jerseys in 1998 against Florida.
This was another new jersey, somewhere between the athletc gold shade on their helmets and the more metallic color they sported the previous season. Numbers on this jersey were purple with a thick white block shadow.
The Tigers shelved the gold for almost a decade after the Florida loss, but a fourth different gold jersey would make an appearance in 2016, when the team played Mississippi State.
That may have been the one time when LSU didn’t really look like LSU. Those jerseys were more of a mustard-gold shade, and featured white helmets with TV numbers and white stripeless pants. Sleeve caps had purple and white stripes in a modified Northwestern pattern.
LSU’s history of wearing white at home can be traced back to the late 1950s. LSU started wearing white at home in 1958. Head Coach Paul Dietzel was partial to the look, and perhaps coincidentally LSU won the national title that year. Thus began the tradition of white at home. In 1982, the NCAA enacted a rule that required home teams to wear colored jerseys. From 1983 until 1994, LSU wore purple for all home games. But LSU wasn’t a fan of the color-at-home dictat, so then Head Coach Gerry DiNardo addressed that requirement with the NCAA Rules Committee, and the requirement was reversed.
While the color-at-home rule was changed, part of the new home jersey agreement required the visiting team to give the home team permission to wear white at home, in writing, prior to the game. (We saw that earlier this year when EKU denied WKU’s request to wear white at home). A similar situation played out back in 1996. Vanderbilt, DiNardo’s former team, declined LSU’s request to wear white at home. However, instead of wearing their purple jerseys, LSU played in gold jerseys against Vanderbilt that year.
So there’s a little bit of a “full circle” moment going on here with the Tigers again wearing gold tops against Vandy. I don’t believe Vandy has denied LSU’s long-standing request to wear white at home this time around, they simply want to wear the new gold alternate.
As of now, the team has not announced their uniform combination. As you can see above, the team has paired both white and gold helmets with their other gold jerseys, and has always worn white pants. The have a couple options for Saturday’s game, including pairing gold pants with the gold jerseys for the first time ever. They could also go full mono-gold, simply swapping the gold jersey for white, and pairing that with their “regular” home uniforms.
An LSU Facebook post in 2016 (right when the team debuted their 2016 alternate uniform) showed the few times between 1995 and 2016 that the team had worn a combination other than their gold/white/gold standard. As you can see, it hasn’t been often they’ve done so.
What say you, readers? Do you like the new gold jersey (I do!). Should they have introduced a gold alternate long ago (and kept it as a part of their rotation)? Should they go “all gold” or do you think it would look better with the team’s white helmets and/or white pants?
I’d like to see them pull out their purple helmets they once wore in 2018, the ones that change color from purple to gold in certain lighting conditions.
Yessss. And wear purple pants, too.
No purple pants nope
They need to bring those helmets back. Absolutely loved them.
Yellow/Yellow/White would look good. All Yellow (full mustard), not so much. Maybe new purple helmets and pants? I don’t like that idea, but it would at least provide some contrast. Glad to see the yellow jerseys have UCLA stripes. That’s key to LSU methinks.
Given their preference for white at home, it has always had me wondering, is LSU a yellow and purple team, thus forgoing their purple jersey as much as possible. Or are they a purple and yellow team who just happens to wear white at home?
Their baseball and basketball teams tend to wear purple pretty frequently, so it seems like they are in fact a purple team with yellow trim.
LSU guy here.
Depends on the sport:
Football: Very much a White/Gold team with purple as an accent. Up until Kelly, the rule was purple only for non-power 5, non-opener games. Now, it’s turning into a free for all.
Basketball: Purple is the road uni. At home, white is the typical uni while the gold is broken out for special occasions (rivals, ranked opponents, etc.)
Baseball: White/Gold team. Purple is for Saturdays and/or the road.
Volleyball: White/Gold. Libero usually wears purple/black.
Track: Mostly Purple
Gymnastics: Sparkles!
Softball: Thunderdome. (link)
They wear gold primaries often enough to say they’re a purple and gold team. Gold jerseys are a big symbol for the baseball team.
How about BFBS? Wold love a mono black look that has absolutely nothing to do with their brand. C’mon, the kids will love it.
This is a terrible idea. I would like to subsrcibe to your newsletter. :-)
This is how it should be done. Have a classic template you stick with and every once in awhile roll out something new, more special that way.
LSU does purple and gold so much better than the Vikings. I would love to see Minnesota use gold more often!
White/Gold/White. HOpefully Vandy goes black tops.
I remember Spurrier electing to wear white at home one year causing LSU to wear their purple jerseys on the road.
Out of all the yellow jerseys, I think this is the best look. My guess is white helmets/pants. Just glad they didn’t do the “blackout” look.
Spurrier did that as a compromise with LSU. In 1997 when LSU asked if was ok if they wore white in their home game against UF, Spurrier agreed on the condition that they would let UF wear white at home against them in 1998. I think after that they didn’t care anymore because I don’t remember Spurrier asking them in 2000 and Spurrier left after 2001.
I always thought it was just one of Spurrier’s “mind games” LOL
I believe yellow and gold are different colors. These jerseys are yellow. The older ones appear to have been gold.
96 is my favorite version.
The problem for me in LSU doing alternate jerseys like this is that their gold/purple/gold look is amazing and they only do it 1-2 times a year. So if they work in new colored jerseys or different helmets and use a home game for it then to me it robs us of a chance to see their best combo.
I’d be more into them wearing more alternates if they loosened up the “gold/white/gold” look being their primary home uniform.
Agreed! Their yellow/purple/yellow look is gorgeous.
I like it! That’s a gorgeous gold (yellow)!
First question (of two) was what time is the game, and it’s at 6:45 Saturday night (SEC Network). Based on the night game factor, and if they asked me, I would say to wear their white helmets with white pants. If the gold jerseys truly match their gold helmets, that should be all right – but definitely white pants. It’ll be interesting to see if Vandy chooses to wear white or black.
Second, how about the SEC patch being in the collar, and lavender at that? Since the SEC likes to honor its already graduated student-athletes on their conference patches, I wonder if these smaller ones will be the same as shown for all jerseys or will have the added “graduate” like the bigger patches.
I’ll definitely check out these jerseys and the color combos for both teams.
I miss the block-shadow number trend of the 90s-2000s! Bring em back!
I think it’ll depend what helmet they pair with the gold jersey on how it’ll look on the field. I think the white would look better as I think there’s such a thing as too much yellow and Vanderbilt will be in metallic gold.
Mustard is such an underutilized color in sports. I wish Pitt had gone back to it with their color rebrand instead of yellow. And I liked Notre Dame and the Ravens with mustard pants.
I’m usually not a fan of the mono look, except for mono white, but I think it would be interesting to see them in mono yellow. Also, Vandy seems like a bad opponent for this if Vandy wear gold helmets and pants with white jerseys.
These are nice – definitely the best yellow jersey they have had.
It’s such a shame that LSU almost never wears the purple jerseys. Gold/Purple/Gold LSU is the best looking team in all of college football.
My biggest beef with LSU is the letters on the helmet. The L has a serif on bottom stroke which looks out of place. Neither the S nor the U have any serifs.
Add to that the fact they have an entirely different LSU wordmark/logo.
I speak from personal experience with the many GT logos of Georgia Tech.
Wow, how have I never noticed this before?!
I’m hoping they have a new purple helmet to pair with white pants, but if not then I’m hoping for white/gold/white. Mono gold would be too much imo
Actually, LSU also wore yellowish “gold” jerseys in 1959 at Florida.
link
And here I was about to complain that LSU never put UCLA hoops on their yellow jerseys until this year. But I guess they did it the very first time they wore yellow as well.
I wonder why never in-between.
I’m all for a mono gold look here. Would be so unique.
I do love those 1997 drop shadow gold jerseys with the white numbers. Wow.
All those previous yellow jerseys look so bad that they don’t even look like LSU! That 1996 top is almost orange, so close to the Vols. I really do like this new jersey but am curious as to what helmet & pants they go with. I’m assuming white helmet and white pants but would really love to see purple pants.
Going to be white/gold/white
link
Came here because I was excited to see what a jersey made of gold would look like. I’m leaving disappointed.
LSU also wore gold/gold/gold @ Ga Tech 1960, same as 1959 @ Fla
1 Looks like a Kelly move to re-ingratiate him self with the team and motivate them .
2 I hope it is not triple yellow . The Savana Banana look ? Really ?
3 LSU looks good in mono white .
4 Yes you can open it up a bit . Missed a real chance with UCLA to wear purple jerseys and UCLA in baby blue . USC and UCLA does it every year with the dark red and baby blue . It is a 5 yard delay of game penalty which both teams decline . Makes for a colorful game .