I vaguely remember our football team wearing gold jerseys in the late 90's. What happened to those and what was the story behind them?
Dinardo was our coach, and Dinardo was an All-American at Notre Dame under the legendary Ara Parseghian. Notre Dame has the tradition of the green jerseys for big games, and I thought Dinardo was just bringing that Notre Dame tradition to LSU with our gold jerseys for big games.
against Vandy DiNardo's 1st tear was the 1st time we wore them. Vandy didn't let us wear white at home. Instead of wearing Purple, we came out in gold. SEC changed the rule after that year, allowing home team to choose. @ Florida in '96 (i think) we wore gold again because Spurrier decide to wear white that game. Same vs. Notre Dame in Independance Bowl. ND didn't let us wear white, so we wore gold instead of purple.
Basically like Nutch said. NCAA Rule starting in the 80's was home team had to wear the team color or dark color(hence us wearing purple in the 80's and early 90's) Current Rule for the NCAA is that visitors get to choose what color jersey they wear (usually white). However, after Dinardo's first year, the SEC change the rule for conference games that the home team gets to choose what color they wear. We hired Dinardo from Vanderbilt, so in essence, to get us back (issues with the buyout if I remember correctly) they wouldn't let us wear white at home, before the SEC rule change. My understanding, is at the time, fans didn't like the idea of purple jerseys because of recent years (associated with bad luck) so Dinardo decided to "create" the Gold jerseys and fans where either told to do a white out or a gold out (can't remember) for the game. In the 97 indy bowl we did Gold Jersey's and White helmets with white pants.(not sure why) Dinardo refused to wear purple jerseys, but did wear purple pants at Kentucky one year. Saban made a point to wear purple at least once a year to make a point that all that superstitous crap doesn't matter. any of you old timers are free to correct me because I am sure I probably got some of that wrong.
current rule is still that home team wears dark, and road team wears white. However, the home team can request permission from visitors to wear white. Oregon St. turned us down in '04, which is why we wore Purple that game. SEC have an agreement to never turn down that request for conference games. LSU has since adopted a basic policy. White for all conference games Purple for non conference, except home opener (white for that game if opponent allows)
The timeline as best as I can remember was like this This was the rule from sometime in the 80's up through 1993 with no exceptions. This clause was added in 1994, DiNardo's first year. I remember because LSU was finally able to where the traditional white at home again. There were posters all over campus showing the back of a player with a white jersey with the caption "Their Back". Pretty much everyone agreed to let us where white at home except Vandy who wanted to be aholes about it, hence the gold jerseys. This agreement went into place after the 1994 season.
