KANSAS

Evaluating the New Kansas Football Uniforms - 53 Days Until Kansas Football

KU unveiled new threads and we give a deep analysis of the sharp new look.

Derek Noll

Kansas Athletics
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The University of Kansas football program recently announced that they will be wearing new uniforms for the upcoming 2023 season, so we’re going to take a look at these compared to what KU has worn in the recent past.

First, there are a few notable absences. The first is the trajan font. Since 2007, when Kansas adopted the font across all athletics, the primary jersey has featured the font, either as a wordmark or with KU on the helmet. No longer. The bold block all-caps KANSAS across the chest harkens back to a simpler time, the Gale Sayers era at Kansas most notably.

And also gone is the trajan font for the numerals. The numbers are now block font as well, outlined in a thicker red. This is what a traditional football number is supposed to look like and it is a massive upgrade in every way. For one, they are easier to read from the stands and on TV, and two, they just look better. They look more “football” if you get my meaning. Both the block KANSAS and the traditional number font are huge upgrades.

Also notably missing is any large red uniform option. There are no red pants, jersey, or helmet. It’s incredible that the best element of a uniform is one that is lacking, but for those of us who despise the red look and think that Kansas should be wearing as much blue as possible, the lack of a red jersey is probably the best news. This doesn’t mean that KU won’t introduce a red element sometime this season, but if the rumors are true and Lance Leipold was a part of the design process, perhaps his sense of tradition will keep the red elements away for a while. I hope so.

The primary Jayhawk logo on both helmets is a sign that the university wants continuity in their look and brand, but the stripes on the jerseys don’t convey that message.

The stripes on the sleeves are nice, but I would’ve liked to see some uniformity and extended those stripes onto the pants. I guess there is uniformity in the all blue set as Kansas doesn’t have stripes on the pants nor the helmet. The white seems a little more haphazard as the helmet stripes don’t match the sleeve stripes and the pants are plain. It’s just a minor thing, and when they mix and match pants and jerseys, the anomalies will be so widespread that they’ll actually be less noticeable.

And that brings me to the uniform combos themselves. It appears that KU will use the all blues as their primary home uniform and the all white look on the road. But, as mentioned above, these uniform sets can be combined in four different ways at home and four different ways on the road, meaning KU can wear only the new uniforms with no throwbacks or one offs, and never see the exact same combo twice. Will they do it? Based on the Jalon Daniels tweet below, I think we'll see some mixing and matching. Man, that blue, white, blue combo is sharp.  Yes, please.

I recently wrote this article predicting what the football team would wear in their first four games. This needs to be amended now that the Jayhawks have new threads.

For the opener against Missouri State, I predicted that Kansas will wear all blue. That stands and seems to be an almost 100% lock now.

In game two against Illinois, I predicted some red elements. That’s gone now (hopefully) and we’ll see Kansas in all blue again, although this will be a great time to mix in the white pants.

For the third game, and the first road test at Nevada, I predicted red pants. Now, I see it as an all white game.

And finally for the Big 12 opener at home to BYU, I predicted Kansas would wear a lot of red. Take that off the table, but mix in a white helmet to complement the all blues.

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Derek Noll
DEREK NOLL

An avid Jayhawks fan his entire life, Derek graduated from the University of Kansas in 1999 and has been writing about the Jayhawks since 2014, getting his start at Rock Chalk Talk.  He specializes in uniform analysis for basketball and football and offers a humorous take on player performances through Player Ratings posts.

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