SU Director of Athletics Dr. Daryl Gross on New Football Uniforms
Opening remarks:
“We have had a lot of announcements lately, and if you notice out on the fields where the FieldTurf is going in, you will see that we have a lot of progress going on and we are really happy about that. If you look where the weight room is, we have some progress going on there, too. So, we have a lot of construction going on and, as we have told you before, we have a lot of new things happening with our new coach and so-forth.
"This year’s football theme is, “Respect the Past. Represent the Future.” Part of our new change with our coach was to do the same with our football uniforms. This year, Syracuse will bring out a brand new football uniform. What we have done with these uniforms is incorporate a lot of the past and add a little futuristic element to it. As you know, our school colors are orange and blue, and we are called the Orange. As you see when these guys walk out, this is our new look. I will try to explain it as they come out.
"First, we have Joe Kowalewski, our tight end, No. 85, and he is sporting the orange pants and the white top, and the new helmet. If you notice, Joe has a blue stripe on the orange pants. The blue stripe was something that was on Syracuse’s uniform years ago when they just had one blue stripe. The blue stripe is larger now. The white jersey has a tackle-twill number 85 on it in blue and outlined in orange. If you look at Floyd Little, Ernie Davis and Jim Brown’s jerseys they had the tackle-twill blue with the orange outline, as well. In the old days, they wore the longer sleeve and now all these guys like to show their muscles so they wear a shorter sleeve. We had to take the stripes that were down below on the white jersey, there used to be three blue stripes down there, and we moved the stripes up here to the top, and instead of having three blue stripes, because we are the Orange, we have the orange in the middle. Here is our first combo. Notice the black shoes. They are going to black shoes this year. Joe is also showing off a retro helmet that will be featured this year, going back to the days of Ernie Davis, with the blue stripe and the number on the side. Not a lot of programs have those, maybe one, Alabama. That’s our first look.
"Next we have our safety, Anthony Smith, No. 20. All I can tell you is that Syracuse used to be all white, and Anthony is sporting the all white look. We haven’t been in all white for a long time, but if you look at our history and you look at a lot of the pictures, you will see some great Syracuse teams in the all white. Again, as we pointed out, there used to be all blue stripes there but we have incorporated the orange, as well. The white pants in the past did not have stripes, but now we have brought the other stripes down to match the uniform. 
"Next up we have Kellen Pruitt, our linebacker, No. 41. As you guys know, we wore our traditional blues last year at home and the orange pant. This is the same look, really, but it has just changed the striping on pant, as Joe showed earlier, and then the blue jersey with the orange and white and orange stripe on the top. Kellen is also sporting the number 41 on his helmet in a retro, throw-back look which has incorporated the past but has put a little future into it, as well. What we like about these uniforms is that they are really classy. When we’re at Notre Dame and Florida State, you are going to have a classy Syracuse bunch of guys coming out there in these uniforms. I just worry about what they are going to wear, and coach Robinson does the rest with how they play.
"Last but not least, we have our running back Damien Rhodes, No. 1. He has the white pants, blue top combo. If you notice with the white pants and orange pants and the blue top and white top, we have four different combos up here. Damien is sporting the No. 1 jersey with the blue top. It looks like we can wear that home or away, whatever Coach wants to do. "Nike did a wonderful job putting these uniforms together pretty fast. It shows the versatility of what we are going to do next year. I think the guys are really excited about wearing black shoes and what black shoes mean. They don’t just want to wear it to wear it. When you think about the greats that were here and I talked about Ernie Davis, Jim Brown, Floyd Little, Larry Csonka and those guys, this is a lot of what those guys wore and we have incorporated it by doing some nice tweaks to the uniform.”
