As college football rapidly changes, uniforms revert to simplicity

The current state of college sports is absolute chaos, at least on the football side of things. But that's a story for another day and we might do that soon.

But one thing amid all the changes, has been a major change to uniform styles lately.

In the recents weeks, many college football teams have been unveiling their new looks for the 2024 season. Many of these unveilings are showing that teams are going back to simple and more traditional looks.

Which honestly is strange for these times of conference realignment and chaos. But it's a good change of pace compared to when schools were trying to out duel themselves with the wildest looks and setting a new trend for the younger generation.

Since the turn of the century, we've seen some creativity in the uniforms worn by teams. The real pioneers of this trend was none other than Oregon, who embraced it as more-or-less a tradition. And if you didn't know already, the Ducks have so many uniform variations, that they do not wear the same combination in a season.

But now it seems the pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way and teams are going to move towards a more minimalist style that was common among teams prior to 2000.

It is refreshing to see teams going back to being outfitted in resplendent colors, instead of the constant use of dark shades of greys and black uniforms. Unless of course you're Michigan State and those neon things that were universally panned back in 2019. That's going a bit too far.

Below is a small sample of the new uniforms teams will be sporting this fall.

IOWA STATE

Photo courtesy of Iowa State Athletics.

Iowa State is returning to a mid-1980's look with some slight updates. And while it's a shame neither the old-school cyclone or 90's style cyclone is being used, we'll give them points for at least having all matching helmets for each player this season.

PURDUE

Photo courtesy of @BoilerFootball on X/Twitter.

The Boilermakers look to bring back some of that magic from their golden era and revert back to winning ways of the Joe Tiller offense, Drew Brees, and Kyle Orton. I'm sure many will miss the train tracks that had been featured on the uniforms.

VIRGINIA TECH

Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Athletics.

Virginia Tech went with an homage to the 1999 team, but with a few tweaks to make them more modernized. But nonetheless, these will give Hokie fans some nostalgic feelings of when this program was peeking in at the turn of the century. 

CALIFORNIA

Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

The Golden Bears are bringing back their late 1970's uniforms along with come modernized changes, such as the use of a darker color scheme the school adopted in the 80's. These are sure to bring back plenty of memories of the Steve Bartkowski days.