Mississippi's Big Three: 2017 Football Uniforms

[hailstateunis]

With the college football season coming to a close, fans start to look back on the season as a whole and talk about what needs to be improved.  Of course, this generally applies to on-field performance, but the same principle can be applied to uniforms.  Some teams already have theirs perfected.  Some have a good base and just need to build off of it.  Others need a complete rebrand.

 

None of the three FBS teams in Mississippi have reached that stage of perfection yet, but none are at stage zero, either.  Mississippi State’s 2016 pants and road jerseys are as close to perfection as possible, but they need to update the home jerseys to be consistent.  Ole Miss has a pretty classic look, but color inconsistencies, some of which can’t be fixed without deviating from tradition, are prominent.  Southern Miss is farthest from a great look, but they have a solid foundation and some great throwbacks that they should build off of.

 

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1. Mississippi State

 

The last few seasons, Mississippi State’s football uniform changes have followed a pattern of two steps forward, one step back.  This past season, they added , a road jersey with no black outlines, and a silver helmet that fit well with rest of set.  However, they kept the maroon jersey with black outlines, got rid of the matte maroon helmet, and wore a head-scratching black jersey with a templated Adidas design- Louisville wore the exact same one.

 

What needs changing in 2017:

 

I. Make the maroon jerseys match the white jerseys.  Remove the black outlines on the numbers and put white-gray-white stripes on the sleeves, matching those on the maroon pants.  Granted, I would have gone with gray-white-gray, but it looks like they’ve settled on w-g-w, presumably to retain two white stripes on the sleeve.

 

II. Bring back matte maroon helmets. The biggest disappointment of 2016 was the lack of matte maroon helmets.  They were replaced by the silver helmets, which admittedly worked in their own right.  However, the matte maroons were the Bulldogs’ best helmets.  I’d like to keep both the matte maroon and silver helmets, but if one has to go, let it be silver.

 

III. Make the gray pants match the white and maroon pants.  By far the most minor change needed, the gray pants just need to be updated to match the format of the other two.  Remove the M-State logo from on top of the stripe on the left side and put one on the front left.

 

IV. Add gray alternates instead of black. State has a silver helmet and gray pants.  A gray jersey, with stripes matching the gray pants, only makes sense.  It would look so much better than the string of black alternates do.  IF they were to go back to a black jersey though, it should match the other jerseys, with white-maroon-white or silver-maroon-silver stripes.  More like the 2015 version than 2016.

 

Helmets for Mississippi State:

 

 

Primary Uniforms for Mississippi State:

 

 

Alternate Home Combos for Mississippi State:

 

 

Alternate Road Combos for Mississippi State:

 

 

Alternate Gray combos for Mississippi State:

 

 

 

 

 

[hailstateunis]

2. Ole Miss

 

The Rebels’ look is serviceable as is.  If they didn’t make any more changes ever, they’d still have a good look.  I do have a few changes I’d like to see, however.

 

I. Gray facemask on primary navy helmets. I know some on this board are opposed to gray facemasks, but in Ole Miss’s case, I think they would be an improvement.  If you only wear this helmet with gray pants, then you have consistency between colors (navy, red, and gray) on the helmets and pants.

 

II. Add TV Numbers. I don’t know why they aren’t there now.  LSU makes them fit.

 

III. Add a second pair of gray pants to be worn with powder blue helmets.  Even as a Mississippi State fan, I can admit that Ole Miss’s powder blue helmets are beautiful.  However, they’re always worn with the gray pants, which have a navy stripe on them.  There needs to be a separate pair of gray pants with a powder blue stripe.

 

IV. Add the UM logo to the collar and pants.  Last season, Ole Miss started using a UM logo on some alternate baseball caps.  I think it’d work well on the pants, as well as the Vapor Untouchable collar.

 

A couple extra, non-traditional ideas…

 

V. Bring back the navy-based road uniforms. From 2013 through 2015, the Rebels had two road jerseys: the traditional red-accented and a new navy-accented.  The navy-accented alternates were not worn in 2016.  This concept proposes bringing them back, along with navy-striped white pants.

 

VI. Add a white helmet and an alternate design for the navy helmet. The last few seasons, the Rebels have come very close to wearing uniforms that excluded one of their primary colors.  I say why not go all out.  Add a white helmet with red decals and get some white decals to go on the navy helmet.  A prototype of the white helmet floated around a few years back, and I recall some positive response.

 

Helmets for Ole Miss:

 

 

Primary Uniforms for Ole Miss:

 

 

Alternate Home Combos for Ole Miss:

 

 

Alternate Road Combos for Ole Miss:

 

 

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3. Southern Miss

 

Southern Miss’s current look is lightyears better than the one that preceded it.  Still, it’s not great by any means.  They really wanted to make black a point of emphasis, and in doing so they neglected gold.  They wore these amazing throwbacks in 2012, but went 0-12 that year.  I made this concept back in August of 2015, and for the most part I stick by it.  This is just on an updated template with some minor tweaks.  It is a Nike template; it was easier to deal with than a Russell template.  For this concept I’ll assume that USM signs back with Nike.

 

Major points for Southern Miss:

 

I. Design based on throwbacks.  Black shoulder caps, then gold-black-gold shoulder stripes.  This design is kept consistent across black, white, and gold jerseys.  For pants, the striping pattern is black-gold-black on gold, gold-black-gold on black, and black-gold-black on white.

 

II. Shiny black helmets at home. Same as now, except stripes are added and the “Southern Miss” wordmark is un-inverted.  Still no white, just black and gold.

 

III. Matte black helmets on the road. They wore matte black helmets during their successful 2011 campaign, and brought them back late in this past season.  I hope we see them more often on the road in the future.  In this concept, there are three different decal options for the matte helmets; “Southern Miss” wordmark, full body eagle logo, and eagle head logo.

 

IV. Gold helmets as alternates.  The Golden Eagles wore gold helmets as alternates during their 0-23 streak in 2012 and 2013.  They did finally win their first game in 24 vs UAB in the gold helmets, and promptly haven’t worn them since.  Give them a black facemask instead of the gray that they were using, and the gold helmets actually look good.  Same decal rotation as the matte helmets.

 

Helmets for Southern Miss:

 

 

Primary Uniforms for Southern Miss:

 

 

Alternate Home Combos for Southern Miss:

 

 

Alternate Road Combos for Southern Miss:

 

 

Alternate Gold Combos for Southern Miss:

 

 

Template Credit: The Adidas template is originally by Taylor_c.  The Nike Vapor Untouchable template is by aawagner011.

[Clintau24]

Granted the mock up of Ole Miss with the powder blue lid and pant stripe looks great, I'd much prefer to see them stick with the navy stripe. I love how it drives so many people crazy, but more so, because it's traditional for the Rebels. That's just how it's always been. 

 

I hate Ole Miss' current road uniforms. I hate that there's such little 2nd color on them. The previous set simply had the Ole Miss chest mark outlined in the 3rd color, and looked so much better. I'm just glad they got rid of the navy pants with the REBEL pants mark.

 

As for Southern Miss, I love the white uniform. Having both colors visible on the white looks great. I know it would be a little inconsistent for this concept, but I think having white thrown in on the black and white unis would 1) break up the monotony of the main color and 2) make everything pop a little more.

[ATolly66]

For MS State, the chest area is too cluttered. Try moving the Adidas logo to the left chest area.

[cjm3114jr]

Cool concepts. For all 3 schools, would they be able to mix and match other combos(Southern Miss-whole eagle black, gold, black) or would they be required to stick to the set alternates?

[hailstateunis]

44 minutes ago, cjm3114jr said:

Cool concepts. For all 3 schools, would they be able to mix and match other combos(Southern Miss-whole eagle black, gold, black) or would they be required to stick to the set alternates?

Definitely mix and match, though for State and OM, I think I showed most all of the acceptable combos.  The decals for USM are completely interchangeable and served to show different options more than anything.