Auburn – Kansas State Uniform Preview

In a new world in which the uniform aspect of athletics has taken on a whole new level of attention, there are two basic types of teams. Teams have made a living and reputation in constantly making changes to their uniforms, trying to push the envelope of uniform design, technology, and ultimately attention they can garner. Then there are the teams that stay true to their history and rarely, if never, change their uniform designs. Just through the sheer amount of teams that belong to the former of the groups, it’s pretty uncommon that we get a match up of two traditional looking teams that don’t play each other on a regular basis. Kansas State and Auburn meet up in Manhattan this Thursday night in what very well could be the best looking game of the week.

The Auburn Tigers and the Kansas State Wildcats last met in 2007 in Auburn, which resulted in a 23-13 victory for Auburn. In fact, Auburn leads the series 3-0, winning in 1978 (45-32 in Manhattan) and 1979 (26-18 in Auburn). This game will mark the first time the future Hall of Famer coach Bill Snyder faces Auburn. Snyder was in his three year hiatus from coaching during the 2007 season, in which Ron Prince took over the reins.

As far as the uniforms go, Kansas State has one of the most classic looks in all of college football. The Wildcats pull of the royal purple and grey so well. The shoulder sleeves, which disappeared during the Prince era, balance the purple tops perfectly. Ask any uniform fan, myself included, and you’ll learn that stripes make everything better. Thankfully K-State reps stripes as well as anyone on the helmets, jerseys, and pants. Unfortunately, the Wildcats added camo decals to their lids for one game last year, and it just didn’t look good. It’ll be safe to assume K-State will wear their traditional purple tops with silver helmets and pants this coming Thursday.

There are so few pictures from this game available.

The Auburn Tigers will be breaking out the white uniforms for the first time this season, as custom would have it. Last year, Auburn didn’t wear the white uniforms until week seven, which was the latest they had been worn for the first time since 1982, also coinciding with the seventh game that season.

Thus far, Auburn players have paired white [basketball] shooting sleeves with the blue jerseys. Last season, for the road trip to Texas A&M, players wore a different sleeve, and for only that game. It’ll be interesting to see if the white sleeves are worn again or the blue or orange sleeves from last year are broken out.

War Eagle!
+Auburn Athletics