Auburn Football Uniform History

Auburn Football has long had a traditional uniform, with a simple Northwestern Stripe design used since the 1950s. But there’s more to this program’s aesthetic history than a traditional uniform. From the 1929 tiger head jerseys to Jack Meagher’s green jerseys in 1938 and 1939, to the dual-helmet system of the 1940s and 1950s, to today’s rotation of facemask color options, Auburn Football’s uniform history is deeper than many believe.

In 1958, Auburn added player numbers to the helmets, utilizing leftover speed limit sign decals for the numerals. The traditional AU logo first adorned an Auburn Football uniform in 1966. In 1969, Auburn introduced a new fishnet mesh-bodied jersey to help fight the heat that turf fields like Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium used. Doug Barfield made his visual mark on the program with orange belts in 1977, orange jerseys in 1978, and orange facemasks in 1979. Pat Dye would move to navy facemasks for the 1984 season and bring the program to heights not seen before.

Terry Bowden introduced orange number drop shadows in 1996, only to be removed in 1999 by Tommy Tuberville. The AU logo sat at the base of the collar from 1995 through 2004, removed in 2005 because of visibility issues on standard definition televisions of the time. Auburn moved to Under Armour in 2006. The Tigers wore white jerseys at home with grey facemasks on the logo-less helmets to honor the 50th anniversary of the 1957 national championship team. After winning the 2010 title, the Tigers were outfitted in Under Armour’s latest template, resulting in truncated stripes on the shoulders and pants.

After Pat Sullivan’s passing in 2019, the Tigers wore grey facemasks in the Outback Bowl with Sullivan’s #7 donning the left side of every player’s helmet, the first and only time the team has worn an asymmetric helmet design. Auburn introduced the program’s first white facemask at Penn State in 2022 and resurrected the orange masks a few weeks later.

Today, the Auburn Tigers are outfitted by Nike and continue to sport the three different facemask color options throughout the season.