New LSU Uniforms

David Helman

Contributing Writer

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Share this article Published: Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Updated: Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Just in case anyone forgot who they’re rooting for this fall in Tiger Stadium, the LSU football team is adding one more reminder.

The Tigers have made a minor change to this season’s uniforms, adding text to the front of the jersey.

“We did indeed add ‘LSU’ to the uniform just under the neckline,” said Michael Bonnette, LSU sports information director.

The new text will feature the University’s primary logo just above the chest number. It will appear in white on the Tigers’ purple home jerseys and in purple on the team’s famous white uniforms.

“There’s nowhere on the actual uniform that actually says ‘LSU,’” Bonnette said. “The idea was to have ‘LSU’ more visible.”

The change catches the Tigers up with the rest of the Southeastern Conference. LSU was the only team in the SEC that didn’t feature some variation of its name or logo on the front of its uniform.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt all feature the school’s logo on their jersey front, while Auburn, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ole Miss and South Carolina display some variation of their school name or mascot.

LSU fans have been known to be passionate about the team’s threads, especially with the legend of the home whites hanging in the balance.

The belief that the Tigers play better when wearing white is fastly held by LSU fans. LSU wore purple jerseys at home from 1983 to 1994, and many fans would be loath to return to those days.

But the small nature of the change didn’t elicit much response from students.

“I’d say I don’t really care because it’s such a small difference,” said Sean Murphy, psychology senior. “I like it actually — I didn’t notice it wasn’t there before, but now that it’s there it definitely doesn’t bother me.”

Trevor Cella, engineering freshman, said the lettering actually makes the uniform look better.

“It definitely spiffs it up,” he said. “It adds ownership to [the uniform] ... I’m glad they went with ‘LSU’ and not ‘Tigers.’”

The new jerseys are available on several Web sites, although the LSU Bookstore does not yet sell them.

Some fans don’t think the jersey needed to be changed.

Shadell Williams, kinesiology senior, and friend Courtney Canyon, biology sophomore, said the change is “unnecessary.”

“It doesn’t look any different,” Williams said. “I just hope it didn’t cost a lot to change.”
Bonnette said the change will last through the 2009 season, but the team is allowed to make alterations to the uniform after that.

“We have a long-term contract with Nike, but we do make minor changes from time to time,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Has anyone seen any on the web sites?