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LSU broke out white helmets last week against South Carolina. Tennessee rocked the Smokey Grey look in its home victory against Georgia. Florida wore all orange earlier this season, the first time that happened since Emmitt Smith’s junior year in 1989.
Almost every team has an alternate jersey or three.
Then there’s Alabama. The Tide never rolls like that, right?
Wrong.
Javier Arenas, a former All-American who helped Nick Saban win the 2009 national championship, let us in on a little secret. Alabama has — or at least had — an alternate jersey too.
“We had one throwback jersey when I played there,” Arenas said. “Y’all probably didn’t even know it. All it had was houndstooth threaded throughout the whole jersey. The whole jersey was houndstooth, light Crimson, dark Crimson type deal. But from afar, it was the same old Alabama jersey.
“It was basically saying, ‘y’all want throwbacks, here you go.’ We saw it, but nobody else saw it.”
Arenas said he likes alternate jerseys on other teams, but said Alabama is different. Good different.
“It’s all about tradition, there. … I hear a lot of guys saying they have to change with the times. They’ll never change, man. They don’t care. They’re in Tuscaloosa, and they’re going to do what they want to do.
“That’s a higher power, as they’d say in Tuscaloosa. That higher power … they feel like Bear Bryant wouldn’t accept anything else.”
The Man. The Myth. The Legend.
