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

The last two articles in this series covered monstrosities at Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech, both unique in their terribleness. It’s not looking great for the league because we’re staying in the ACC again today.

The Lead Up

The off-season heading into the 2014 season had Florida State completely on top of the college football world. They were coming off a dominant National Championship season that saw the Noles go 14-0 and beat Auburn in the BCS National Championship Game. Quarterback Jameis Winston won the Heisman as a redshirt freshman and he’d be returning for another run leading the program.

On the topic of uniforms, outside of a black-helmeted alternate uniform in 2009, the FSU program had only introduced very small changes over a 40+ year period. Go back and look at the famous 1993 game in South Bend to see how shockingly plain the Florida State uniforms were back then–and not a ton changed through the years. Nike and the school decided after winning a title it was the time to try something new.

The Result

Florida State ended up doing a pretty large refresh and overall update to their branding. A small tweak to the arrow helmet logo might not have been immediately obvious if that was the only change. Instead, FSU introduced a pretty radical change to their Seminole head logo and dramatically altered their football uniforms.

We won’t even mention their black alternates, which woof.

Some pretty large and extensive hieroglyphic-looking designs on the shoulders and collar were put on the jerseys in a large departure from the past. If that was the only uniform change it might’ve been accepted, but no we are not done.

The updated logo has endured. 

Florida State opened their 2014 season at AT&T Stadium against Oklahoma State and debuted their road uniforms to the delight and horror for the rest of the nation. The shiny metallic gold trim was gone and in walked a light cream imposter. The stark contrast in the pants jumped out, but the Seminoles also switched their away jersey numbers to cream outlined in garnet.

Perhaps most unforgivable of all were the cream helmets. Don’t sleep on the Seminole arrows crisscrossing in the back of helmet, which was also panned, but the cream helmets were a college football war crime.

The Reaction

There was so much vitriol around these uniforms (especially as Jameis Winston started acting a fool) that Nike and Florida State were left no choice but to make some changes.

After just 2 games, the cream helmets were put out of their misery and shelved forever. When the Noles faced rival Clemson in their 3rd game it was in the more familiar metallic gold helmets. More changes came later in the season for their 8th game of the season against Louisville where FSU switched back to garnet numbers on the white road jersey.

When the Noles opened up the following 2015 season, the arrows on the helmet were no long crisscrossing and back to their traditional one-sided look. It would take another 5 seasons before Florida State returned to white numbers on their garnet jerseys and in 2023 they finally ditched the busy shoulder and collar design for something much more understated.