Maybe I am an old foggy but while I like the form and improved performance of the combat unis why couldn't they use our traditional colors? Our golden helments are unique and the last one's could have been mistaken for Notre Dame or Washington. Same with our gold pants.:geaux:
the tradition started 53 years ago in 1958, when Coach Paul Dietzel decided LSU would wear white jerseys for the home games. from the LSU Athletic Dept: that year, LSU ended up having one of the greatest teams in the history of college football, being ranked #1 in the country for 14 straight weeks in the AP Poll from 1958-1959 (this streak is the best streak at #1 for any team in SEC history), winning the 1958 National Championship, and producing the winner of the 1959 Heisman trophy (he also finished 2nd in 1st place votes for the 1958 Heisman, behind only a HB from Army). since then, LSU has continued to wear white jerseys at home games (except when outlawed by the NCAA from 1983-1994). also, LSU has continued to wear the exact same uniforms worn by the 1958 Tigers, only replacing the numbers on the side of the helmet with a helmet logo, and only moving the numbers from above the shoulder stripes to below the shoulder stripes...
I never noticed the numbers above the shoulders before. That would be something different on our unis I could get on board with.
Uniform makers called those TV numbers back in the day. In the early days of televised football, the cameras usually were placed high. The belief was the numbers on top of the shoulder pads would make it easier for viewers to identify the players.
also, after the darkest age of LSU football, six straight losing seasons from 1989-1994 (wearing purple at home), LSU hired a new coach for the 1995 season. he lobbied the NCAA to allow us to wear our white home jerseys at home again, and in the first home game in the white jerseys since '82, we upset #5 Auburn, and then went on a 29-9-1 run (17-5 at home, 3-0 in Bowl Games), which included an upset at home over #1 Florida, and two back-to-back finishes in the Top 15 (#12 and #13) that's not to say LSU can't win when we wear purple at home, from 1983-1988, LSU wore purple at home and won two SEC Championships ('86, '88) and finished in the Top 25 five straight times, including two finishes in the Top 10, and LSU was wearing purple at home during the 1988 Earthquake Game when LSU upset #4 Auburn being that we are doing this Pro Combat thing for our home game vs Auburn, we could wear purple in honor of the 1988 Earthquake Game vs Auburn, or we could wear white in honor of the 1995 Bring Back the Magic game vs Auburn
Awesome! I love those uniforms, cant wait to see them in action again...I really do think the design is kind of neat. Clean cut, but I do wish they would bring the gold jerseys back too, now those are cool....
The white jerseys are also a derivative of the first team that year wearing white jerseys in practice, thus being known as the "White Team". NCAA rules at the time limited substitutions, so the starters played both ways. Dietzel came up with a three-team system, with the first team playing both ways. The second team focused practice time on offense and wore gold jerseys, and became known as the "Go Team" using "go" as a shortened version of "gold". Dietzel didn't like the idea of calling the third team the "purple team", so he followed a line from the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates", where a character described Chinese bandits as "the most ruthless people on earth". To instill this spirit, Dietzel call the defensive specialists the "Chinese Bandits", which caught on around the South. [In fact, a Nashville DJ wrote a little ditty* honoring the Bandits which Tiger Band still plays when the defense makes a possession changing stop (fumble, int, or 3d & 4th down stops)] Based on this, the "White Team" came to be known as the best LSU had to offer. GEAUX TIGERS *The words of the song go something like this: "Chinese Bandits on the way, listen what Confucious say: 'Chinese Bandits love to pop, gonna stop a touchdown, CHOP CHOP'"
The combat uni's would look better with purple pants with a bright gold stipe on the thigh... Too much white if you ask me.
They probably would, if they knew what the words were. But the only thing they have to go on are the chants by the students, which aren't known to follow the correct lyrics. GEAUX TIGERS
