LOOK: No. 3 Tennessee unveils new uniform combination for matchup with No. 19 Kentucky
Break out the speakers and crank the AC/DC, the Volunteers are back in black this weekend. No. 3 Tennessee unveiled its uniform combination for this week’s game against No. 19 Kentucky and it is superb.
Tennessee will be wearing black uniforms against Kentucky, complete with a new-look black helmet.
The Volunteers revealed the uniform combination with a tweet from the team’s official Twitter account on Tuesday evening, providing four shots of the new look from different angles.
Since coach Josh Heupel arrived in Knoxville the Volunteers have been a bit more willing to toy around with different uniform combinations, something he thinks recruits in today’s day and age really respond to.
Tennessee wore black uniforms twice a year ago, sporting them against South Carolina and Georgia. But those weren’t quite the same look as Saturday’s uniform combination against Kentucky; Tennessee’s ‘dark mode’ jerseys last year did not include a black helmet, but rather featured a white helmet with black accents on the orange block “T” and on the stripe on the helmet (see above).
Saturday’s will feature the full ensemble, just two days before Halloween.
Josh Heupel a fan of Tennessee’s alternate uniform combinations
Tennessee has already busted out one sweet look this season, wearing smoke gray jerseys on the road against LSU. The Volunteers won 40-13.
They’ll be hoping for similar success in the new threads this weekend against the Wildcats, knowing the stakes in the SEC East race are getting sky high as a meeting with No. 1 Georgia looms the following week.
For Heupel, jerseys have been a topic of conversation since he arrived.
“The first meeting that I had with the football team the day that I got introduced, I told you we spent an hour and 15 [minutes], hour and 30 minutes in there talking about a lot of things that matter,” Heupel said last October. “Some things that they felt like were important. Jerseys were at the end of that conversation.”
Obviously uniform combinations don’t have a ton to do with what happens on the field. But Heupel, Hendon Hooker and company have taken care of business there so far.
No harm in looking good doing it. Particularly if it gets the people going.
“To me, the player experience is at the forefront of everything that we do,” Heupel said. “There’s non-negotiables for myself and our coaching staff in how you gotta attack everyday, whether that’s in the weight room, whether that’s class, whether that’s on the football field.
“But then there’s some things that you want to give them ownership in and make the player experience as good as it can be, on and off the field. Uniforms is something that, it’s important to them, and in some ways it’s important in the recruiting world as well.”