Virginia Tech Football: Leave the Orange at Home

The ugly jersey has become popular during the last few seasons. It seemed to start when the Oregon Ducks decided to have a different jersey every week. Nevertheless, the different uniforms have helped the Ducks recruit top talent over the past few years.

Maryland decided to take the same approach this season and debuted one of the ugliest jerseys in college football history in their Week 1 win over Miami.

The Hokies of Virginia Tech have quietly followed suit. The problem with the Hokies' alternate jersey isn’t the design but rather the color. The Hokies official colors are Chicago maroon and burnt orange.

It is a great color combination, but only when used one way. Maroon is a great and unique color, and orange works well as an accentuating color.

It doesn’t do the same the other way. Orange is not a good color for a football jersey. The only exception to that statement is the Texas Longhorns. Be that as it may, it now appears that someone from Virginia Tech had an epiphany while driving down I-81.

That person drove past some road work signs and thought “Hey, I like the color Orange, we should use that color in new football uniforms.” That may have been the worst idea since the Oakland Raiders' drafting of Jamarcus Russell with number one overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft.

No football team should ever wear orange (once again exception Texas). Don’t just take my word for it, take the word of Syracuse University. They are the “Orange” and they don’t even wear orange tops. They do wear orange helmets and pants, but that is what the 'Cuse has always done.

Syracuse has attempted the orange top, and it was an abomination (pictured below). If the Orange can’t pull off the color, then the Hokies never stood a chance.

While alternate jerseys can look good and they even motivate players, this new foray into orange has done neither for the Hokies. Virginia Tech’s latest orange attempt started in last season’s Orange Bowl.

They decided to pull out orange helmets, and Stanford blew them out 40-12. They brought the color back this season against Marshall—with Orange pants and helmets—and they played inconsistently. They then wore orange tops against Boston College and again played inconsistently.

This brings us to this past week’s atrocious jersey combination against Duke. The Hokies decided to wear orange pants, white jerseys and maroon helmets. It looked like a clown's costume.

It would have been acceptable if two of the items matched, but the three different colors looked terrible together. The combination may have looked worse than the Hokies' actual play on the field.

Virginia Tech is 3-1 while wearing orange during the past two seasons, but they have played poorly in all of four of those games. This isn’t to say that the Hokies have consistently played well while wearing their usual maroon; the 20-point loss to Clemson came in Maroon.

There is one jersey combination that the Hokies seem to refuse to use, and it is probably the best looking uniform they can put on the field. Virginia Tech needs to go dark with maroon helmets, maroon jerseys, maroon pants and black socks.

This used to be the big game combination (2003 Miami game anyone?) but it hasn’t been used since the Hokies came out with the new uniform design.

If the Hokies really want to change their look on occasion then I think they should pull out the throwback uniforms donned when Michael Vick was their signal caller. It isn’t really a throwback because they wore the jersey less than a decade ago, but it was a sleek and classic look (some might call it plain).

It was an all maroon jersey with no piping or stripes. The numbers on the front were white and the numbers on the shoulders were orange. It was simple but it worked.

The only thing that is for sure is that Virginia Tech needs to stick with maroon. It is hard to pull off the color orange. Tennessee has used the color throughout their history. The insiders love it, but those on the outside looking in are looking at creamsicles.

The Hokies just need to leave the color orange where it belongs...in the locker room.