Fall (football) fashion preview

• previous image
• 1
• 2
• 3
• next image

From Walter Camp to the Yale Bowl, tradition is the foundation of Yale football. So when head coach Tony Reno set out to update the team's uniforms, he looked both forward and backward.

“We had been using the same jerseys since 1999,” says Reno. “The numbers were screened on, and some didn’t even match.”

Reno’s design aims to celebrate the Yale teams from the latter half of the twentieth century by maintaining the classic, simple elements that earned Yale a spot in Sports Illustrated’s Top Ten College Football Uniforms. The nods to the past began last year when he replaced the thick, outlined "Y" helmet sticker for the slimmer “Y” of the Calvin Hill era.

With the modern-era bulldog logo (known as the "Y-dog") removed from the shoulder, the Bulldogs will look strikingly similar to the teams coached by Carm Cozza and other Yale legends. But with help from equipment manager Jeff Torre, Reno ensured any attempts to harken back to the past did not affect the jersey quality. “These are top of the line,” says Reno. “We used Nike’s ‘pro-cut’ tapering to make the jerseys form-fittting, which will make us faster and more difficult to tackle.”

The sharper, leaner uniform debuted in late June when high school prospects were on campus for the Eli Football Camp. In recent years, college programs have realized the value in updating their uniforms as a recruiting tool. However, instead of the flamboyant designs of teams like the Oregon Ducks or Maryland Terrapins, Yale has elected to preserve their classic design.

Only the pants have a markedly new scheme; they feature a single, narrowing blue stripe. While this style has never been featured on a Yale uniform, writer and Yale sports maven Bob Barton ’57 points out that the Bulldogs have donned several variations of lowers. Pants with thick stripes, skinny stripes, plain white pants and even yellow pants have all been worn at some point in Eli football history.

The Bulldogs will premiere their all-white away threads in their season opener at Colgate on September 21, while their blue home jerseys will have to wait until Cornell’s September 28 visit to the Yale Bowl. 

Editor's note: Yale Alumni Magazine summer intern Henry Furman ’14 has more than a journalistic interest in the new uniform: he'll be wearing one this fall as a Bulldog quarterback.