Nike Dressing 10 College Football Teams With New Uniforms

Virginia Tech One Of Ten Schools Wearing New Nike Pro Combat Uniforms In Next Few Weeks

Nike this Saturday will outfit 10 college football teams with "specially designed, state-of-the-art" Nike Pro Combat uniforms over the next few weeks, according to Stefan Stevenson of the FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM. The new jersey, which Nike will formally introduce at the start of the '10 season, is made of "four-way stretch twill, which does not hold sweat or water, making it lighter than the current design even when wet." The pants are "made with four-way stretch Lycra," and underneath the uniforms is a "padded base layer, with strategically placed padding zones in Nike’s Deflex shorts, which cover a player’s thighs, hips and tailbone." TCU will wear the uniforms for their game Saturday against Utah. The team's pants and helmets will feature a "digitally sublimated Horned Frog skin print," while "embroidered on the inner collar of every jersey is the Frogs’ 2009 battle cry 'Don’t Back Down.'" Nike also unveiled its new Zoom Vapor Fly cleats, "customized for TCU with team colors and logo" (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 11/10). Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and Florida State also are confirmed to be wearing the uniforms, while Ohio State, Texas, Florida, LSU, Missouri and Miami are "believed to be the remaining schools" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 11/10).

PROMOTING GOOD VERSUS EVIL: Virginia Tech will wear the new uniforms in their game Saturday against Maryland, and Nike Football Business Dir Loren Hoppes said that VT's all-white jerseys were inspired by the fact that Maryland will be "having a 'blackout' for this game." Hoppes: "We wanted the good guys to wear white." In Virginia, Kyle Tucker reports Tech's jerseys "feature the phrase 'UT Prosim' -- a classy nod to the school's own military tradition." The Latin phrase means "That I May Serve." Hoppes added that while the campaign "wasn't a dig at a competitor," he noted Nike "tried to roll out this new product line in games against non-Nike-sponsored schools" (Norfolk VIRGINIAN-PILOT, 11/10). Both Maryland and Utah, TCU's opponent, are sponsored by Under Armour (THE DAILY).