Monday, January 16, 2017

Year in Review - Oregon of the South

The 2016 season was an up and down ride for nearly every party. South Alabama's football team was no exception. The season's highs included the program's first ever win over an SEC program at Mississippi State, and first win over a ranked opponent in San Diego State, but had lows with seven losses, including blowing a 21-point lead against Air Force in the bowl game.



When the play on the field was inconsistent, one thing could be counted on - the team would trot out of the tunnel wearing a new uniform combination for each of the thirteen games on the schedule. The Jaguars started the season at Mississippi State wearing their classic road white jerseys and blue pants. It wouldn't be until the eighth game of the season that South Alabama would wear their classic white helmet with blue JAGS and stripes.

The first uniform surprise of the 2016 season came in week two against Georgia State. South Alabama made history by breaking out the program's first non-white helmet shell, debuting a matte blue helmet with nickel-plated silver facemask. The new lids featured red-on-white decals, with the white areas being a bit chrome-like. The new blue helmets were worn with the brand new Nike Mach Speed blue jerseys and pants for a full monochrome-blue look. Unfortunately the Jaguars fell 24-9, but that didn't stop the team from mixing and matching uniforms in the future games.

The South Alabama Jaguars debuted the program's first ever blue
helmet and a new Mach Speed blue jersey vs Georgia Southern.
(photo via Mike Kittrell - al.com)

As the Jaguars traveled to face Louisiana-Lafayette, the equipment team was busy getting another new helmet design together. Back in white helmet shells, South Alabama sporting the nickel-plated silver facemasks with red-on-chrome silver decals. This helmet, paired with white tops and pants, fell a bit flat for me with the lack of blue throughout the uniform.

Back home for week four, the Jaguars were taken to overtime to finally finish off a scrappy Nicholls State team. USA broke out the alternate grey uniforms for the game, with Nicholls sporting their home red tops on the road. The team stuck with the white helmets from the week before, saving the equipment team tons of time.

The first game of the season resulted in South Alabama's first win over an SEC program. Just a few weeks later, the program got its first victory over a top 25 ranked team, as #19 San Diego State came to town. The Jaguars once again broke out the matte blue shells, but this time paired them with blue facemasks and a new decal set. The helmets featured blue-on-red decals, which ultimately got lost with all the blue on the helmets. Some white would've helped the JAGS logo pop better. The team sported their red jerseys for the first time this season and paired with the blue pants made for a great color balance.

The next game saw the Jaguars travel to and fall to Arkansas State. USA stuck with the blue lids, but went back to the red-on-chrome silver decals. Paired with the white tops and blue pants, this fell like a nice balance of colors for a road uniform.

The following Thursday night featured a marquee matchup against Troy. South Alabama would stick with the same blue helmet design from the previous week, and pair it with the red tops and blue pants. The all-white clad Troy Trojans would pull out the 28-21 win in Mobile.
The Jaguars had a historic season defeating an SEC program
and a Top 25 Ranked program in Mississippi State and
San Diego State, respectively.  (photo via USA Athletics)

South Alabama would get back in the win column with a homecoming victory over Georgia State. This would be the return of the "classic" look for South, back in the normal white helmet with red tops and white pants.

USA would then travel back to Louisiana to face UL-Monroe, another game that would go to overtime, sadly not in the Jaguars' favor. South Alabama would stick to the classic white helmet from the previous week, and sport the white jerseys and alternate grey pants in the loss.

With the rescheduling of the Florida-LSU game due to Hurricane Matthew, South Alabama was left without an opponent on the make-up date, having previously been scheduled for yet another trip to Louisiana. With Florida scheduled to host Presbyterian, the two spurned teams would face each other in Mobile. The Jaguars once again stuck with their traditional white lid, but sported blue pants and jerseys for the first time since week two.

Following the make-up game, USA traveled 2,400 miles to Idaho to face the Vandals. The Jaguars would be back in the matte blue lids and silver facemasks, once again with a new decal set. With white-on-red decals, this was the best the blue helmets had looked all season.

The Jaguars would travel back to Mobile to face New Mexico State, still looking for that elusive 6th win to become bowl eligible. The season finale would mark South Alabama's annual military appreciation game, so the team would sport special American Flag-inspired decals. This season, though, the special decals would be worn on the blue lids rather than the whites. The Jaguars would top off the USA! look with the red tops and white pants. The 35-28 win would propel South Alabama to the program's second ever bowl game.

The Arizona Bowl saw the Jaguars break out another special bowl game helmet. (photo via USA Athletics)
The 6-6 South Alabama Jaguars would face off against the 9-3 Air Force Falcons in Tuscon, Arizona, for the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl. Much like their first bowl game a few years ago, the Jaguars would sport a special helmet design featuring the school's jaguar head logo. The helmet worn for the 2014 Camellia Bowl featured an oversized jaguar head on one side, with the usual JAGS wordmark on the other. This year's helmet saw the jaguar head on both sides of the helmet, thankfully. The decals used for the bowl game were extremely red-heavy, whereas the logo design itself is blue-heavy. The swapping of colors, alongside the white tops and bottoms, led to a uniform that was incredibly heavy on the red, and lacking a lot of blue throughout.

13 games, 13 different uniform combinations. Two helmet shells, two facemasks, multiple decal sets makes for 11 different helmet designs. The season didn't go as expected on the field, but the uniform combinations did a lot in generating some buzz for a young program. While tweeting out the weekly combination, multiple people would respond citing that South Alabama was turning into the "Oregon of the South." That's not a bad thing. Oregon has made a name for themselves with the tradition of new uniforms so often. If South Alabama can continue mixing it up each week, and more importantly, keep the uniforms looking good, the program could see a big increase in exposure. With the school's football team only six or so years old, any news is good news for the Jaguars.


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