Wednesday, December 30, 2015

2015 Mississippi State Football Uniforms Review

Two thousand fifteen was a big year for Mississippi State football.  In Dak Prescott's final season, the Bulldogs finished with an 9-4 record, the 4th time in 7 years as head coach that Dan Mullen has won at least 8 games.  Uniform wise, it was the dawning of a new set of primary uniforms.  An alternate jersey, along with several alternate pants and helmets were worn throughout the season.  By season's end, the Bulldogs had worn a school record 10 uniform combinations, only repeating two combos all season.

Primarily, 2015 was a transitional year for the Bulldogs uniform-wise.  Many changes were made before and throughout the season, but these are the big 5 that cement 2015's place in uniform history.

I. Change in Helmet Logo

This may have went unnoticed by some, but one of the biggest changes, and one that was actually adjusted mid-season, was the helmet logo.


For the first three games of the season, the transparent banner M-State logo was worn with a silver outline on a shiny helmet.  At first, I was in favor of the silver outline, but it soon became clear that silver and white were too similar in color and, like the logo from 2009 and 2010, only muddled up the logo.  So, for the fourth game of the season, with the 2015 debut of the matte helmet, the silver outline was removed from the helmet.  When the shiny helmet was worn again vs Troy, it too lacked the silver outline.

2015 Belk Bowl: vs NC State- 51-28 Win

The Bulldogs will cap off their 2015 season, and Dak Prescott's career, in today's Belk Bowl vs NC State.  This year, the SEC team is the home team for the Belk Bowl, and therefore gets free choice of uniforms.  For the first time this year, the Bulldogs' uniform combo was actually announced before the game- actually about three weeks beforehand.  Scott Stricklin quickly announced on Twitter that the Bulldogs would be wearing the shiny maroon helmet and maroon jersey, with the fan's choice of pants.  Using Twitter's new poll feature, the @HailStateFB account ran a poll asking fans if the Bulldogs should wear white, maroon, or gray pants in the Belk Bowl.  Predictably, with over 7,500 votes, gray pants won the vote in a landslide, gaining 60% of the votes as compared to maroon's 28% and white's 22%.

So, for the third time this season, the Bulldogs will wear the ever-popular shiny-maroon-gray combo.  It will be the fourth time that the gray pants have been worn overall; they were worn with the matte helmet and white jersey at Arkansas.

NC State, also an Adidas school, will NOT be going with a traditional look.  Instead, they will be pairing this interesting helmet with white jersey (with black outlines) and dark gray pants.  Doesn't that color discrepancy sound familiar?

Shiny Maroon Helmet
Maroon Jersey
Gray Pants

Game Photos: