Georgia can use alternate uniforms and still be traditional

Georgia’s Alternate Uniform History

To young fans, Georgia appears to be another blue blood team that has never gone away from their conventional styles. Aside from those five games from November 2007 to September 2011, the Bulldogs only play in the traditional red and black.

But older fans know that Georgia has used alternate styles on several occasions. They have been rare occasions, but it has happened more than many fans realize.

In 1999 Georgia wore white pants for one game as a throwback to the 1960’s and 70’s when Georgia began wearing white pants instead of silver pants when Vince Dooley was hired.

In 1998 Jim Donnan brought in black pants for two games. First with white jerseys in the Outback Bowl versus Wisconsin and later with red jerseys against Florida.

A Minor alteration was made in the 1991 Independence Bowl against Arkansas, Ray Goff added black stripes to the helmets for just that game. A different black stripe was brought back by Donnan as the primary helmet from 1996-2000.

From 1977-1980 Georgia wore red pants for every road game, in fact Herschel Walker’s first two touchdown runs against Tennessee came in red pants. From 1980-1986 red pants were only used sparingly.

Before that you have to go back to the 1940’s to see Georgia wear alternate uniforms, but back then they actually served a purpose. Teams weren’t required to wear white on the road until the 1960’s.

When two teams like Georgia and Alabama played each other, in their normal uniforms they looked almost the same. Both wore a shade of red jerseys, Georgia wore silver pants while Alabama wore grey. And of course, football was still in the leather helmet era.

There’s also a painting circulating the internet of Frank Sinkwich while at Georgia wearing a black jersey. But that has not been confirmed as being inspired by an actual uniform Georgia wore at that time.