Ever since the turn of the century, the Miami Hurricanes football program has been known for having uniforms that skewed towards the modern end of the design spectrum. Even though this trend started while the team was under the Nike umbrella, it continued as the school switched to Adidas. When Mark Richt returned to the football program as a head coach, the school went back to a uniform design that was reminiscent of the team's glory days in the 1980s and early 1990s.
With that being said, going with a traditional striping pattern doesn't stop you from having a cutting edge look and that's what the Hurricanes are trying to achieve with their new alternate uniforms. For starters, the team has unveiled an alternate uniform that will be all-green from the neck down. This is a very rare color combo for the Hurricanes and it's definitely an interesting change of pace from the orange-dominant color scheme that the football team is known for.
Indeed, orange has been relegated to a secondary color on these uniforms, with the school's dark shade of green taking the forefront on both the jerseys and the pants. The school's iconic white helmet with the orange-and-green "U" remains untouched on this uniform, which is good news for the traditionalists who will be watching the team on September 23, which is when these uniforms will be worn.
However, tradition will go completely out of the window on October 12, which is when Miami will go all black from head-to-toe. This isn't the first time that the football team has tried out an all-black look, though this will probably be their best effort at the all-black look. Green stripes with orange outlines adorn the black helmets, jerseys and pants, while the numbers are white with orange outlines. I'd imagine that they went with white numbers for legibility purposes, since it would be fairly difficult to make out green numbers on a black jersey from a distance.
Most importantly, the "U" logo on the helmets retains its normal colors on the black helmet and gets a white outline as well. There are times where you shouldn't mess with a good thing, and that logo is one of those good things. The last time Miami wore black helmets, the famous logo was colored in silver and it just looked strange. Granted, it still looks a bit weird to see Miami in all-black, but at least the "U" logo looks normal.
As far as a general reaction to these uniforms goes, I'd imagine that the reaction will be a bit polarizing when it comes to the all-black uniforms. The all-green uniform is a change of pace, but it's still close enough to the regular home-and-away set to where it doesn't look too out of place and I could even see them pairing it with white pants at some point in the future as a consistent alternate uniform.
On the other hand, the black uniform is clearly one of those one-off uniform deals that we'll just see for a special occasion and maybe only once again in the future. That was the case for Mark Richt's Georgia team when they experimented with black jerseys, and I'd imagine that that will be the same for Miami and their current usage of black uniforms.
