No alternate or one-off uniforms here. This is a series discussing the worst standard uniform changes in modern college football. 

The Lead Up

The history books will say the mid-to-late 1990’s were a time where people wanted to be dark and edgy, while in the sports world this meant pivoting towards darker colors–particularly to navy blue. At the professional level, the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots (NFL), the Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, and Golden State Warriors (NBA), the Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders, St. Louis Blues, and Vancouver Canucks (NHL), plus the Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers (MLB) all switched to a darker blue during the decade.

The trend didn’t escape college sports, either.

In 1996, Steve Pederson became athletic director at Pitt and made several sweeping changes at the school. The royal blue and yellow were out, and in came navy blue and Vegas gold. He also wanted to drop the use of “Pitt” in favor of “Pittsburgh.” Let’s see if it worked out!

The Result

The school went through a handful of football uniform changes and tweaks during this era beginning in 1997 with the blob Panther (that’s what I’ve always called it) logo on the helmet instead of the classic script Pitt logo.

All of a sudden with Champion as their uniform manufacturer, the team looked like a K-Mart Notre Dame team.

The uniforms debuted in 1997 with this guy who was pretty good at WR.

When the program switched to Nike, the uniform stayed mostly the same with Pittsburgh across the chest in drop shadow font with that same style on the numbers. The blob Panthers was on the shoulder sleeves and front left hip, too.

Years later, Pittsburgh switched to Adidas uniforms but the 1990’s era navy blue design stayed largely the same.

Changes from 2006.

What you do see is the blob Panther gone from the helmets in favor of a new block “PITT” script. Pederson’s attempt to un-Pitt the athletic programs didn’t work, but I guess there was too much pride to switch back to the script logo of yesteryear. The jerseys also dropped the city name in favor of the “Panthers” script across the chest.

Things didn’t stay this way for long because one year later, the chest name was changed again.

Changes from 2007.

The school found out people really liked the Pitt moniker and that went across the jersey. This also began a few seasons where the program started wearing blue pants during a lot of games, both at home and on the road. It wasn’t until the 2009 season when Pitt ended this Pederson-inspired makeover–although many of the same elements remained (like the block Pitt helmet logo) after a more traditional Nike uniform was created.

The Reaction

Outcry over Pitt going to these dark blue and tan colors was some of my earliest Uniwatch memories on the internet. These uniforms were never popular and it’s wild that the Panthers spent 22 years (!!!) sporting these colors before finally returning to royal blue and yellow in 2019. The program had worn the old colors often as an alternate leading up to 2019 and finally smartened up completely.

For me, the second edition uniforms from 2006 were the worst of the bunch. I never liked the blob panther logo but at least it had some character. The block Pitt script is one of the worst helmet logo decisions in modern college football history. They kept it for 12 years!