Guice, Etling Show Off Possible New Football Uniform, Early 00’s Shoulder Stripe Pattern Returns

Over the weekend, a couple of eagle-eyed readers reached out on twitter with some posts from the account of Derrius Guice and the official LSU Football Instagram account. As normally happens in the dead of summer, LSU’s promotions department has photo shoots with a few players that will later show up on game tickets, programs, and other promotional material for the upcoming season.

As many have pointed out to me, it would appear that LSU, or more likely Nike, is revising the uniform template that LSU Football uses. What appears in these photos looks to be a change back to the template used in the early 2000’s.

For folks like me and Adam, the change to the length of the shoulder stripe immediately grabs your attention. The classic “UCLA Stripe” has been reduced in length, cut off at just about the collarbone. This is the uniform worn by LSU from 2002 through the regular season of 2012, as Poseur would call it, “The Golden Age”. The change is easily spotted compared to a photo of the team during the Citrus Bowl.

We did extensive research on the subject of LSU’s uniforms during the last change in 2013, after the past design’s surprise reveal during the ill-fated Chic-Fil-A Bowl. The uniform since 2013 has had minor revisions, including an enlarging of the number font after the first season when it appeared almost comically tiny on Linemen. The numbers on these new uniforms seem a little larger, but we’ll really need a few more pictures to be sure.

The change has come with no fanfare or announcement, so it’s very likely the change came from Nike and will trickle down to all the other teams they outfit with the “UCLA Stripe” pattern, notably Ole Miss and La Tech. As I covered in the 2013 post linked above, getting the UCLA Stripe to work on modern uniforms has become tougher and tougher as players opt for less and less sleeves, to the point where (as seen above) not even Quarterbacks want anything more than the minimum amount of material needed to encase the shoulder pads.

Personally, I’ve always loved this look for LSU. It’s a much cleaner look than what we’ve been wearing the last few years, even though it’s just a minor alteration. There haven’t been any indications of other changes, but I would bet that LSU will see another special one-off uniform again this year. I’d love it if last year’s mustard gold throwback made a return, along with the All-white set that has appeared the last few seasons.