Ranking Every USF Football Uniform of the Decade, Part II: The Meh

Welcome to Part Two of our ranking of every USF football uniform worn from 2010 to 2019! 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.

Today, the panel will be discussing the uniforms that received an average rating between 4.0 and 5.0. By and large, these are looks that either (1) the panel unanimously found uninspiring, or (2) a couple panelists enjoyed, but other panelists very much did not enjoy. In other words: the “meh.”

If you missed it, you can find Part One here.

---

#43
Average Rating: 4.1
Life Span: 2012
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: Jamie had these at a 7; no one else had these above a 4.

Jamie: I just think it’s a good look!

Nate: Hideous. Stop with the glitter helmets.

Will: Yeah, don’t like the helmet here.

Steeg: This one is mostly fine, since it benefits from not comparing the green helmets to a slightly less green jersey.

Ryan: This is definitely my favorite of the green helmets, but that’s like saying “this is my favorite of the sharks that chewed my arms off.” It may be because you can’t see the cartoonish logo from this angle.

#42
Average Rating: 4.1
Life Span: 2014
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Steeg: Oh good God, I forgot how much I hate this one.

Ryan: I have zero feelings on this.

Nate: White helmets are butt. If all of the white helmets from 2010-2014 were to disappear, I’d be happy.

Will: Non-matte white helmets are butt.

Ryan: I don’t mind the non-matte white helmets and in several instances find them to be snazzy. Not here, though.

#41
Average Rating: 4.2
Life Span: 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

gousfbulls.com

Ryan: These get points because I think it was the first time we pulled out the America helmets, and I thought it was cool at the time.

Nate: Trash white helmets, again.

Steeg: We received these decals two days before the game, and the patches a day before the game. That week was the worst week.

Will: The center stripe weeks will get you too, because you do all the side decals and you’re like “I’m done.” NOPE.

Jamie: I bet I underrated these. These are pretty nice. I wasn’t just saying that to make Steeg feel better, but I hope he does.

Steeg: Slightly.

#40
Average Rating: 4.2
Life Span: 2011 - 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-2

Photo by J. Meric/South Florida/Getty Images

Steeg: Just eh.

Ryan: Zero feelings on these too. They’re fine.

Will: Don’t like that weird thing going on with the shoulders.

Ryan: I agree that the horns thing they did on the shoulders from like, 2011-2014 is not my favorite. I liked it at the time, but it’s very busy and kind of weird looking in retrospect.

Nate: I don’t think there was a helmet combo that year to save that green on green.

#39
Average Rating: 4.6
Life Span: 2010
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-1

Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images

Ryan: These were on pace for an above-average rating until Nate slapped ‘em with a 1.

Nate: I have nightmares about this combo. These are the helmets that made me hate white helmets. It’s basic, unsightly, and the jersey is plain as well.

Jamie: These are as bad as the “bookstore” look? Nah.

Will: OK. Not a fan of the single thin stripe down the center of the helmet.

Steeg: Isn’t this the beginning of the Michigan State era?

Ryan: Yeah, in 2010 they basically dropped gold as a color. But they were extremely clean and are wildly underrated in this exercise. Also, they finally got rid of the mustard helmets, which was the best development in USF football history UNTIL WE BROUGHT THEM BACK ON PURPOSE.

Nate: Listen, gimme a classic mustard with a robo-goat logo, and I’ll take that over almost any combo here.

Jamie: Nate’s uniforms takes are CANCELED.

Ryan: Oh hey, speaking of which.

#38
Average Rating: 4.7
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 1-1

Photo by David John Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Ryan: I hate these. Crinkly gold numbers are terrible, mustard helmet is terrible, and they don’t match. Can whoever is in charge of USF’s uniforms please take note of how much we hate the pivot to mustard?

Jamie: Those suck and Nate surely propped them way up.

Nate: These helmets look awful during the day. I enjoy the green on white. I think the white pants make the uniform. Give me this combo at night, and it may push up to a 7.5 or 8.

Will: Make regular gold or white numbers on the jersey and this gets a lot better. I think the helmets would be fine if it wasn’t for the crinkly chrome numbers.

Steeg: The jersey is the only thing that I didn’t like about this, but I feel like it’s just because of the crinkly numbers.

Ryan: Down with crinkly numbers. I want to fight all crinkly numbers.

BONUS NOTE: We discussed these uniforms with Bulls247 editor Will Turner, who said that when USF wore these for the Georgia Tech game, a couple players came up to him and said something along the lines of “I never thought I’d see the day where Charlie would change the uniforms again.”

#37
Average Rating: 4.8
Life Span: 2011
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 2-0

Photo by J. Meric/South Florida/Getty Images

Ryan: OK, these were on pace for a downright good rating before Nate gave them the dreaded 1.

Nate: Again, white helmets are trash.

Will: So much better with the three stripes down the middle of the helmet.

Steeg: There was something SUPER aesthetically pleasing about the use of gold trim on nearly every piece of green.

Jamie: The helmets are nice, but the NOBs (“names on back”) were just TINY. Like go find a picture of say, Mak Djulbegovic from this era. Dude has 11 letters in his last name and it’s still narrower than his number.

Ryan: You’re so right. I actively remember that and how weird it looked.

Jamie: It made me twitch.

#36
Average Rating: 4.8
Life Span: 2012 - 2013
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 2-2

Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images

Ryan: This one got a couple 7s! And also a 1 from Nate!

Jamie: Nate has an AGENDA.

Nate: DOWN WITH THE WHITE HELMETS.

Jamie: They’re good! What’s the problem?

Will: I actually like this a lot.

#35
Average Rating: 4.9
Life Span: 2019 - ?
USF’s Record in This Uniform: 0-1

Photo by Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Ryan: OK on this one, I am the Nate. These are a very cool idea in theory but in practice, the helmet looks like an unused coloring book.

Jamie: The helmets are dope. The rest, nah.

Will: I like the effort in bringing the oversized U back. But you can’t even notice it.

Nate: I was on the field at this game. The helmet looks so much better in person. And when you compare it to the last uniforms they wore (the dreaded “bookstore” uniforms), it’s a home run.

---

Tune in later this week for the third edition, in which our panel moves onto uniforms that they mostly unanimously enjoy! (Well, except one member of the panel. You can probably guess who.)