Ranking Every USF Football Uniform of the Decade, Part IV: The Runners-Up

Hello and welcome to Part Four of our ranking of every USF football uniform worn over the past decade! For the uninitiated: our intrepid panel of fashion-forward reporters have individually rated each uniform, ranked the uniforms by average rating, and gathered to discuss each one. What follows is the consensus ranking, along with their deliberations and debates.

The panel consists of five people:

Robert Steeg, student equipment manager, USF, 2014.

Will Kennedy, athletic training assistant, USF, 2015-2017; equipment graduate assistant, Northwestern, 2018.

Jamie DeVriend: verified USF historian; has watched significantly more USF football than anyone else on the panel, and thus presumably has seen a lot of uniforms.

Nathan Bond, Managing Editor of The Daily Stampede, so he gets on the panel if he wants.

Ryan T. Smith, came up with the idea; generally nice guy.

We’ve finally reached the uniforms that were, by and large, unanimously enjoyed by our panel. These are the runners up - the uniforms that received ratings between 6.5 and 8.0, and just missed the cut on earning a spot in The Daily Stampede’s top ten uniforms of the decade.

If you missed any of the previous parts, you can find them below:

Part One: #53 to #44 (average rating between 1.0 and 4.0)

Part Two: #43 to #35 (average rating between 4.0 and 5.0)

Part Three: #34 to #23 (average rating between 5.0 and 6.5)

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#22
Average Rating: 6.6
Life Span: 2015
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-0

Photo by Cliff McBride/Getty Images

Will: This is one of my favorites. I may have even ranked it in my personal top five. Matte white helmet with RWB decal and gold facemask is beautiful. The socks give it a little something else, too. Also a bit of a sentimental choice because of how massive that game was.

Ryan: I think this is alright - it works better than most of the America helmets on the green unis. There’s kind of a ceiling for me on this sort of look because it inherently doesn’t match well.

Jamie: This uniform gets slightly marked down because of the whole forced patriotism concept.

Nate: The one time the America stuff looks good. I even like the socks here. Clean uniform.

#21
Average Rating: 6.6
Life Span: 2017
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images

Will: Those uniforms don’t look nearly as cool without the helmets they wore against Navy the year before.

Ryan: Agreed, they need the helmet. They got the band back together here and it was OK.

Jamie: Good old one-helmet Charlie.

Nate: I enjoyed this uniform. And the U.S.F. is really cool. Solid uniform. I turned my phone off for 20 minutes after the game.

Ryan: Longest winning streak in the nation!

#20
Average Rating: 6.6
Life Span: 2010
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 2-1

Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images

Ryan: These received fantastic marks from me, Will and Jamie and less so from Steeg and Nate.

Jamie: Those were so nice. The white on white on green always works. I’m not a huge fan of gold on the jerseys and pants, it should either be the helmet color or just an accent.

Steeg: It’s OK. Not offensive.

Will: This is nice. Would prefer USF to Bulls on the chest, but other than that a solid uniform. Probably the best of that era.

Nate: The Bulls is smushed. White helmets. Just not a fan of this combo.

#19
Average Rating: 6.9
Life Span: 2015
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Steeg: Nice.

Will: Ooh baby. Those are nice. Probably my favorite generic combination from this era of uniforms.

Nate: Love it. Don’t mind the white shoes with this combo.

Jamie: If I didn’t rate this at least a 9 I will not be pleased, because that looks good.

Ryan: I like it! The gold/white/green combo is never my favorite - it doesn’t match that well to me - but this is a very good uniform. This is basically USF’s typical 2017 away uniform but with green pants, and I think I prefer the white pants a bit.

#18
Average Rating: 6.9
Life Span: 2015 - 2016
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 2-0

Photo by Jason Behnken / Getty Images

Steeg: The first time these uniforms came out [a 65-27 win over Cincinnati in 2015 in which the Bulls led 51-3 at halftime] was emotionally the peak of USF football, and the unis matched.

Ryan: A bit much on the green, but the helmet is stellar. It’s more tasteful than the 2014 UConn all-greens.

Will: Way too much green for my taste. But the helmet is amazing and will be utilized in fantastic fashion down the line.

Jamie: Yeah a little too much - I’m not a huge fan of all green. Also there’s no white at all in those.

Ryan: Nate, Hater of White, gave this one the highest grade with an 8.

Nate: These are awesome. I love the green on green on green and the shoulders are great.

#17
Average Rating: 6.9
Life Span: 2014
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: The first appearance of the oversized U helmet, and one of the best “horn shoulders” era uniforms. These are attractive. They don’t pop in this particular picture, but it looks really nice when the light catches the gold on the helmet.

Nate: Great helmet, like the green on white. Don’t love the gold on the shoulder, and the green stripe on the pants is interesting. Gimme more color on the socks. Big bump due to awesome helmet.

Ryan: I appreciate that you analyze these uniforms down to the socks.

Will: When that helmet showed up on the field I was floored. So nice looking. Horn-shoulders are dumb, but green/white is great. Green helmet is a nice change of pace from gold.

Steeg: Another one that was a weird blend of eras of USF football, but it worked, soo???

Jamie: I brought the curve down here. Just not a good combo. Green/green/white doesn’t really work, plus that Skip-era uniform set with the weird pant stripes.

#16
Average Rating: 6.9
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan: A good friend makes his first appearance in this countdown.

Will: God’s Helmet!!!!

Ryan: This is indisputable proof that God’s Helmet can singlehandedly turn a bad uniform into a pretty good one. These are an eyesore with the mustard helmets, but now they’re reasonably pretty.

Will: Yeah, that helmet took a terrible uniform and turned it into an average one. It makes everything significantly better.

Jamie: The helmet counted for about 5.5 of my 6 points here.

Steeg: These are always just going to be beautiful helmets. It felt weird on these unis, but nonetheless.

Ryan: This should be USF’s permanent helmet.

Nate: I think we can all agree this got the God’s Helmet bump and nothing else.

#15
Average Rating: 7.1
Life Span: 2018 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-1

Photo by Mary Holt/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Will: I’m a big fan of neon green in general. I think the helmets look great. Also tire tread is less noticeable on black! Even though this was 2019, they still have the iconic U on the shoulder instead of the horns that were upgraded in Adidas 2.0. Neon horns might have been pretty cool.

Nate: I like the blackout look, especially with the color pop of neon green. Without tire tread this probably gets higher on the list.

Ryan: I know this is a fan favorite and I get that, because the SoFlos are fun and USF has never had a black uniform before, but these are admittedly not my favorite. The helmet reminds me a bit of the old green helmets; something about it looks a bit cartoonish. And I wonder if it might look better without the gradient on the numbers. At any rate, this is a fun concept and I certainly don’t dislike it. As with the rest of the 2018 uniforms, I wish they got more creative with it.

Will: Yeah, I’m also not a fan of the gradient on the numbers. Think that’s my least favorite thing about it.

Steeg: As much as USF detested using black for a long time, this was well-executed, much to the chagrin of traditionalists.

Jamie: Black is not a school color. And these look like they got thrown together in 10 minutes.

Ryan: This is definitely the canvas for something very cool looking, but right now it’s kind of big concept, not enough execution for me. This idea is absolute madness but maybe (1) get rid of the gradient, (2) make the helmet U an oversized U, and (3) add some neon green 2019-style shoulder horns? What say y’all to that?

Will: Oversized neon U?! You really know how to get my blood pumping.

#14
Average Rating: 7.2
Life Span: 2014
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-1

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: I really like these. The all white makes the horn shoulders less busy.

Will: Yeah, this one is amazing. Almost the perfect use for this helmet. Looks so much better than the previous time it was used. The green helmet accents the green details of the jersey so well.

Nate: Clean white on white with God’s Helmet’s brother. Matte helmets >>>

Steeg: It’s always weird when you realize the numbers on the shoulders are super small. Those are my only gripes about this type of jersey style.

#13
Average Rating: 7.3
Life Span: 2014
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-0

gousfbulls.com

Nate: Love the alternating colors top to bottom. Very pleasing to the eye.

Will: This is the second best it gets with Cousin of God’s Helmet. It’s just very clean and very pleasing.

Ryan: I like these slightly less than the all-white variation above, but these are undoubtedly very very nice.

Jamie: Really like the green-white-green combination. It’s hard to screw that up. Did they wear older pants? These don’t have all the dumb horns on them so they look better.

#12
Average Rating: 7.5
Life Span: 2015 - 2017
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 7-0

Adam Hagy-USA TODAY Sports

Will: These are the definition of “nice, but nothing special.” Like extraordinarily solid uniform that is pretty iconic USF.

Nate: These are the new classics.

Ryan: I have no qualms with this. It’s sharp. It’s not a top ten look for me, but if they had just kept on with this being our traditional home uniform I wouldn’t have complained.

Steeg: There was something very unique about the colors utilized. It was one of the few uniforms that I think when people saw it live who were vaguely familiar with college football, they were like “yup, that’s USF” instead of something like Oregon or Baylor.

Ryan: I agree! of all of USF’s #brand uniforms that they instituted for the better part of a season, this is far and away the best one.

Jamie: They look good, but I wonder if Charlie took a look around the uniform room before the first game and just slapped these together. I love the green facemask as a contrast.

#11
Average Rating: 7.6
Life Span: 2016
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-0

Photo by Joseph Garnett Jr. /Getty Images

Nate: This was the first game of 2016. I think if fans didn’t know this was gonna be a special team, this uniform and game made a statement. Things were gonna be different in 2016, and they were.

Will: These are fun! I love how the neon numbers pop off the green. Also love that there’s no gradient.

Steeg: These were so much fun, that’s my main thing. Like it goes against what I said above with the uniqueness, but this was swag.

Ryan: I brought the average down here, and I like most of the SoFlos. These are definitely my least favorite of the SoFlos, for two main reasons: (1) the helmet color doesn’t match the jersey and it drives me insane, and (2) for whatever reason - and it was universal enough that I assume it was intentional and not just an individual choice - everyone had those neon undershirts flapping around all game and it looked messy.

Jamie: Those neon undershirts were fantastic. I still want one.

Ryan: I would love one! Not flapping underneath my uniform, though.

Jamie: I think the uniforms looked better with the undershirts out. It was an extra color pop and it broke up the green jerseys and green pants a little bit.

Will: Those gloves might be the best accessory USF has ever worn.

Jamie: They look like plastic disposable gloves, like he’s about to ask someone to turn their head and cough.

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Stay tuned for the finale later this week, in which our panel finally unveils their top ten! Included: a most unorthodox color. A brilliantly designed one-off alternate uniform. The shattering of lifelong friendships as the panelists promote their personal favorites. And, after hours of debate, a champion uniform that USF has never lost in.