No alternate or one-off uniforms here. This is a series discussing the worst standard uniform changes in modern college football.
The Lead Up
If you’re under 35 you may remember Cam Cameron as the offensive coordinator in the NFL and then with the Les Miles LSU Tigers. What you may not recall is Cameron playing quarterback at Indiana in the early 1980’s and then becoming the Hoosiers’ head coach for 5 seasons beginning in 1997. It would result in one of the more bizarre uniform decisions in Big Ten history.
The history of Indiana’s uniforms is one where they’ve had a hard time not looking like another school. In the 1960’s they looked similar to Alabama, and in the 1970’s like a red version of Illinois. Moving into modern times the Hoosiers have dealt with the issue of how much black to use in their uniforms because they look so much like Oklahoma.
They’d use black trim for a while and then get rid of it after a while. By the 1990’s, the urge for BFBS was becoming stronger. In 1990 black facemasks were used and were later followed up with more black trim on the helmet and uniforms, including the trim on the numbers and lettering. So when Cam Cameron arrived for 1997, taking over after Bill Mallory’s 13-year tenure, adding some more black wasn’t that wild of an idea.
However, Indiana went more intense than expected.
The Result
As far as I can tell, Cam Cameron has no connection to San Francisco. He was born in North Carolina and grew up in Indiana before heading to Bloomington as a student-athlete. Yet, for some reason when he took over the Hoosiers in 1997 he wanted the football team to look like the 49ers!?
I guess it makes sense in the fact that the Niners were among the best teams in the NFL and had been incorporating more black into their uniforms for the past few seasons leading up to 1997. Indiana unveiled a new oval helmet logo with uniforms and striping strikingly similar to San Francisco, including adding the logo nestled into the sleeve stripes.
Quite the look!
The most alarming change of course was a full-time switch to black helmets. Overnight, the Hoosiers became unrecognizable and once again spent time looking like another school–in this case Texas Tech.
They even wore black uniforms for a week 3 game against Kentucky that will live in infamy. That day, the Wildcats Air Raid led by Tim Couch tore Indiana to shreds in a 49-7 loss. Cam Cameron never wore those black uniforms at Indiana again. They were a true one-off disaster.
The Reaction
The reporting suggests that Cameron, who played basketball under Bobby Knight, was politely told by the hardwood general after the Kentucky game that the Hoosiers didn’t wear black as school colors. Cameron was fired after the 2001 season and what is wild is that the school kept the base of this black helmet and lots of black trim throughout his entire tenure. Five years this kept up!
When Gerry DiNardo took over for 2002, the Hoosiers went back to very plain red uniforms and looked just like Oklahoma again.
