The changing calendar to July means more to colleges around the country. It’s the expiration date for multiple apparel contracts. Georgia Tech is transitioning from Adidas to Under Armour, Penn State is moving from Nike to Adidas, and Tennessee is doing the vice versa. You probably wouldn’t notice, but South Carolina’s change in apparel is actually changing the school’s color.
Most of the differences in apparel are minimal. Do you notice any difference in this Penn State football uniform? There are stripes instead of a swoosh. That’s it.
South Carolina is making bigger changes, although they are nuanced. The 10-year deal with Nike is worth $70 million. Like Penn State, this year’s South uniforms basically look the same, aside from the swoosh.
“Our brand identity is so strong that we didn’t want to bastardize that and just completely throw everything on its head,” USC athletics director Jeremiah Donati told Wes Mitchell of GamecockCentral.com. “The changes you’ll see will be subtle, but there will be changes. We didn’t feel like that was appropriate to completely change our look and our identity Day 1.”
Well, except they did.
If you noticed in the photo at the top of the page, the new uniforms are all-black. The school’s official colors are garnet, black, and white. Nike apparently works with a different color palette. Their garnet color schemes looked more like Alabama’s or Georgia’s shade of red. Nike must use a lighter shade than what South Carolina fans are used to seeing. From The State:
You may be asking, how is this possible? The most likely answer: Nike assigns its schools to a color “team” — there is a “Team Crimson”, a “Team University Red,” etc. It probably matched South Carolina with the team — and color — it thought was closest to South Carolina’s official garnet (Pantone 202), which seems to be “Team Crimson.” With that being said, South Carolina’s colors have gone through slight tweaks in the past. This is nothing new. And if you stand around the Nike merchandise long enough, you’ll convince yourself it looks like it came from another school, stand there longer and then debate if it even looks that much different.
Gamecock garnet will not look so dark this fall, even though the Cats will likely be playing Shane Beamer’s squad under the lights at Williams-Brice Stadium.
As we mentioned in the story, Nike places all its its college programs in color categories: Team Crimson, Team University Red, etc
Seems like South Carolina is in Team Crimson … which is close but not USC’s exact Pantone 202 color
South Carolina garnet —– Team Crimson https://t.co/sPpq2A6t8o pic.twitter.com/KybnaIzfob
— Jordan Kaye (@jordankaye_23) July 1, 2026
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