Ranking Every USF Football Uniform of the Decade, Part I: The Ugly

With USF sports on hold for the foreseeable future, your buddies at The Daily Stampede have been hosting various USF-centric debates amongst themselves. Perhaps the most divisive of these was an age-old question: what is best uniform USF football has ever worn?

We decided to answer this question once and for all, and we’re making the results - and our deliberations - public. The Daily Stampede assembled a five-person panel of staffers, each with their own unique qualifications for the job at hand: ranking every uniform USF football has worn this decade.

The Panel

Robert Steeg, student equipment manager, USF, 2014 season.

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

Jamie DeVriend: verifiable USF historian; has watched significantly more USF football than anyone else among the panel, and thus has presumably 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.

The System

USF wore 53 different uniforms from 2010 to 2019. (we chose the decade as the arbitrary cutoff here, both because 2010 was around the time where schools really started getting creative with their uniforms, and extending this to the dawn of USF football would make it far too unwieldy). Each panelist rated each uniform from 1 to 10, and the ratings were averaged to produce the ranking.

After the uniforms were ranked accordingly, the panel discussed each uniform amongst themselves. What we present to you is the panel’s ranking of and commentary on every uniform USF wore last decade, from worst to first, split into five different parts for your digestibility.

The first part begins below with the uniforms that received an average rating of below 4.0 - uniforms that were almost unanimously considered poor at best, and awful at worst. Enjoy!

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#53
Average Rating: 1.2
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 2-1

David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan: Only one person rated this above a 1. What makes this uniform the worst USF uniform of the decade?

Steeg: The helmet is egregious. That coupled with the fact that the gold trim from the helmet logo doesn’t match up with the gold trim from the jersey, AND it goes against the idea of “South Florida” by putting USF is terrible.

Ryan: The jersey is actively bad enough, but the HELMET, y’all. It looks like a JV high school lacrosse uniform. Like, I remember when this came out for the first time and we were like “maybe they ran out of helmet decals at the last minute so they had to grab some from the bookstore.” And then they brought it out TWO MORE TIMES. On PURPOSE.

Nate: When you compare it to the other white helmet of 2019 used, it feels rushed, and last minute. I fully believe if they hadn’t won that first game, we wouldn’t have seen it again. The gold doesn’t match, and frankly, white, on white rarely works—this was not one of those times

Will: I remember when USF EQ tweeted a pic of it pregame against UConn. I legit thought it was a joke.

#52
Average Rating: 2.0
Life Span: 2018
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Jamie: I really disliked the green uniforms the last two years. Like, really, really disliked them. Then you add a helmet that didn’t match at all. Why does USF hate America?

Nate: Tire tread design thanks to poor contract signing time management. Gold chrome on ugly gold. Bulls down the pant leg. Just disgusting.

Ryan: Tire tread was so bad, agreed. This isn’t worse for me than the other tire tread uniforms, but they’re all bad in my opinion.

Steeg: “We need to appreciate the troops, what should we do?”

”I know! Use those nifty red white and blue decals we have!”

”Brilliant! Let’s make sure people can’t actually see them during a 2:00 kickoff by putting them on a chrome helmet!”

Will: To me, this is the worst uniform USF has ever worn and it’s not even close. I would have given it a 0 if that was allowed.

Ryan: it should be noted that both Will and Steeg attempted to give this a zero, and I respect their efforts.

#51
Average Rating: 3.3
Life Span: 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: I actually don’t really see the big deal with this one. I don’t like it, but it is innocently below average to me.

Nate: Pee helmet

Steeg: JV lookin helmet

Will: It’s fine. An exceptionally average uniform. White on green always looks good IMO. Helmet is very bleh.

#50
Average Rating: 3.4
Lifespan: 2011 - 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-3

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: This was probably my hottest take of the entire thing - I think it looks kinda nice.

Nate: Pee helmet PLUS pee pants.

Ryan: I feel like USF fans generally hate the gold pants. I thought they were a nice twist

Will: I appreciate that they spiced the pants up a bit with the green stripe. Gold pants are RARELY, if ever, a good look, though.

Jamie: Those gold helmets were absolute toilet. Then adding gold pants to them - I mean, they look like an FCS team.

#49
Average Rating: 3.6
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-2

Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports

Will: IF YOU’RE GONNA WEAR CHROME GOLD NUMBERS ON YOUR JERSEY WEAR CHROME GOLD INSTEAD OF MUSTARD HELMETS.

Jamie: Awful baby poop helmets with the very bad template home uniforms.

Ryan: Here we have a base uniform which is already terrible, with peel-off chrome lettering. And then instead of at least MATCHING the peel-off chrome with a chrome helmet, they decided to throw it back to 2007 with a non-matching mustard helmet. We looked really bad in 2007, y’all! Let it go!

Nate: I think the green on green plus the helmet make it work. These helmets look much better at night than during the day.

Jamie: The only thing I wouldn’t throw straight in the trash are the horns underneath the shoulders.

Steeg: I’m rare in that I like the uniforms themselves. The helmet also didn’t bother me because it’s very muted.

#48
Average Rating: 3.6
Life Span: 2011 - 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-5

Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images

Nate: Oh throw these helmets into the sun.

Will: Green on green on green is just.... bad.

Steeg: I have no comment other than I just hate it.

Jamie: See I didn’t hate those so much! I actually kind of like it!

Steeg: Y’all know when they do the green and gold chant and the green section is a lot louder than the gold? This is the visual equivalent .

Nate: If you go green on green (top and bottom), your helmet better be really good, or at least match, or not look like Edward Cullen from Twilight in the sun.

#47
Average Rating: 3.6
Life Span: 2011 - 2012
USF’s Record in These Uniforms: 1-2

Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Nate: Again with these helmets.

Ryan: I just cannot deal with these helmets. That’s really all there is to me.

Will: The helmets don’t look as bad here with some white to break it up in between them and the pants.

Jamie: I think they’re fine, fight me.

Ryan: However!

KAYVON WEBSTER

WITH NO ONE IN FRONT OF HIM

You talk about a DEFLATER

#46
Average Rating: 3.8
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in These Uniforms: 0-1

Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Will: I hate the game significantly more than I hate the uniform here .

Steeg: I just feel like it’s what? Three straight years of “MURICA helmets” with regular jersey?

Ryan: I’m less bothered by the helmets not matching. I’ll just never be able to get behind those crinkly gold numbers - it looks so high school.

Jamie: I remember everyone being like “well the uniforms will be so much better once Adidas has time to design something better” and then we get to 2019 and they’re basically exactly the same.

Nate: It’s a decal bros with lifted trucks would slap onto their back window.

Steeg: No lie, have the red white and blue decal on my Yeti cooler.

Nate: Point proven.

#45
Average Rating: 3.8
Life Span: 2018
USF’s Record in These Uniforms: 3-2

Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan: If you look at these from far away, they actually look super cool! Then you get close up and you’re like ohhhhhhhh god. The tire tread is awful, and the numbers look like they were added with tape.

Jamie: OK, so first of all, I hate the pivot back to “South Florida.” And then these tire tread fabrics and heat pressed numbers.

Will: These are just egregiously bad .

Nate: I hate that the numbers would peel off at the slightest touch. The baby ‘U’ on the shoulder is dumb.

Steeg: I think every uniform from that year was bad.

#44
Average Rating: 3.9
Life Span: 2011 - 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-3

Photo by J. Meric/South Florida/Getty Images

Jamie: TRASH

Nate: Oh FFS. Stop wearing your pee pants.

Ryan: I don’t mind the gold pants! I really am in the minority here.

Jamie: I should have given these a 1, is it too late to give them a 1? There is nothing about them I like.

Steeg: Boring boring boring. ”Green and gold are our colors and we play football.”

Ryan: I am probably the only thing saving the two gold pants jerseys from the very bottom.

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Tune in later this week for the next edition, when our panel of fashionistas reviews the next batch of uniforms! Included: Steeg vents about helmet decals, and Nate reveals his absolute hatred of a certain color.