USC And UCLA Football Uniform Recap: Small Changes To Classic Looks

With college football season kicking off over the weekend, it's time to look at what changes have been made to the UCLA and USC football uniforms. The short answer is not much, the long answer is that adidas and Nike have moved UCLA and USC to new templates which results in the same uniform looking slightly different. Also, UCLA has an alternate road jersey in the works.

UCLA is on its third season wearing the adidas techfit uniforms, which offer all sorts of close fitting lightweight benefits for the players. From an aesthetic point of view, it means sleeves are sort of a thing of the past. The lack of sleeves has resulted in the virtual elimination of sleeve stripes and tv numbers, and because of the cut shoulder stripes have been severely truncated. The UCLA stripe, as it's known in uni-geek circles, is now more of a UCLA splotch.

The "big" change between the previous version of UCLA's away uniform and the one they wore against Rice is the removal of the navy blue second outline. The navy blue numbers seem a bit larger now, with a single gold outline. Honestly think the previous version was more readable, but it's pretty much a non issue. This is more a note for the uniform collectors out there.

There's a possibility of more changes on the way. This photo has been circulating lately, though the school has yet to comment on it. UCLA wore neither a white helmet nor blue pants against Rice, but that is the version of the white shirt that they wore. The blue on the home uniforms, which is the one being sold by the student store, is the same shade of slightly darker UCLA blue that adidas has been, but the numbers have changed here as well with the white inner outline gone.

It's probably only a matter of time that UCLA wears the road alternate with the white helmet. UCLA fans should remember well what happened the last time they wore a white helmet.

USC has been a beacon of stability through the Pete Carroll years, but (and again this is only for those who have to have the exact uniform being worn on the field) USC is now wearing the Nike Pro Combat template that Nike is using in the NFL.

That shiny area around the collar is called a flywire collar, and you'll notice it a lot more in the NFL. For teams that used to wear a different colored collar it results in a sort of disjointed look. Other than wearing the third generation of the Nike Pro Combat uniform (they skipped the first two generations) the uniform is unchanged.