There are two interesting storylines to come out of IU’s blowout win over Rutgers: it was IU’s first victory in a Homecoming game since defeating Arkansas State University 36-34 in 2010 and the uniforms that were worn to celebrate the university’s bicentennial.
The threads weren’t anything insane. The old-fashioned pitchfork logo was a nice touch, as were the faded shades of darker red on the shoulder pads to mimic IU basketball’s candy striped pants. But other than some other small changes, like a different font for lettering and numbering, the uniform was still similar to IU’s traditional crimson top, cream bottom home outfit.
IU has some similar alternate uniforms over the last few years, but like the 2019 bicentennial alternates, they have mainly only added slight changes to the traditional look.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with IU’s normal uniforms. The traditional look the Hoosiers sport is simple, clean and fine looking.
However, by being as basic as the Hoosiers usually are, they are missing out on opportunities to make the program more attractive to recruits.
Uniforms have been used to influence other programs, most notably at the University of Oregon. Per the Daily Emerald, back in 1996, Nike co-founder Phil Knight created a partnership with Oregon “in an effort to better attract future players to the team.”
But the real change for the Ducks came in 2009 when the school basically decided their traditional school colors of green and yellow were optional. Since then, Nike has paraded out dozens of different uniform combinations, ranging in colors from the classic green and gold, to all black, all white, even all pink threads to support breast cancer awareness.
Pink is actually something IU has done before. In the middle of this decade, the Hoosiers would wear a pink pitchfork logo on their helmets during breast cancer awareness month in October. But the Hoosiers would wear them with their normal uniforms, which resulted in the pink looking out of place and disappearing the last few years.
Back to Oregon. Before 2009, the Ducks had won three conference championships in the previous 54 years. But since Oregon got creative with its uniforms, it has won four Pac 12 crowns.
While flashy uniform combos don’t automatically mean more victories, Oregon has also made great head coaching hires and brought in top recruiting classes. There is no debate that “The Oregon effect” has made the university a much more attractive destination for recruits.
The Oregon strategy does not work well for all schools. Tradition-rich programs like Alabama, USC and Penn State don’t ever change their uniforms because the mystic of decades of winning at these schools speak for themselves.
IU basketball is another example of a school that sells tradition and past success as a reason the program will be good in the future. However, unlike the Hoosier basketball program that has five national titles and a pair of hall of fame coaches in the program’s history, the football program has been marred with over a century of being usually terrible.
Because of that, IU football can’t sell tradition to recruits. Tom Allen and his staff need to be innovative to sell the program to prospects, and for the most part they have been successful since Allen became the head coach.
However, being more creative with uniform design would be another way to make the program more appealing. IU already took one step with that by returning player names to the backs of jerseys, which was wildly popular with members of the team.
Maybe the program should have fans design a different uniform for the team to wear for a game every year, similar to what IU alumn Mark Cuban has done in the past with fans for the Dallas Mavericks or let the players design an alternate uniform.
IU should not totally ditch its traditional look. But the program, and Adidas, should start pushing the boundary on uniforms to try to sell the program more.
IU should wear black uniforms for a home night game. Heck, maybe wear candy striped pants for a game, just do something different a few times. Just do something creative.
