BC Unveils New Adidas Uniforms for 2021 Season
Andy BackstromStaff Writer
Clean and classy. Those are the words second-year Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley used to describe the Eagles’ new Adidas uniforms back in April.
The highly-anticipated threads were finally unveiled Wednesday night.
BC is sticking with the throwback logo and stripe-less helmets but moving away from the Doug Flutie era replicas. The new jerseys feature bigger numbers with a more traditional font, similar to the tops the Eagles wore in the mid-90s. The retro BC has slid down from the shoulder pads—where numbers now lie—to the sleeves, which no longer have Northwestern stripes.
The jersey collar sports another old BC logo, filling the space between the ACC football and Adidas symbols. Perhaps the biggest change, however, is the pants. BC went simple.
Gone is the thick maroon stripe and its white border. All that remains is a gold coat, with the BC and Adidas logos sitting right below either hip. While the pants are a bit plain, their color matches BC’s gold much better than the Under Armour throwback uniforms from 2018-20.
The Eagles are one five ACC football teams wearing Adidas this fall. They will join Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami and North Carolina.
BC was formerly with Under Armour yet, like Cincinnati, UCLA and Cal, dropped its partnership with the apparel company during the 2020-21 cycle. Two weeks after the school signed a trailblazing 10-year deal with New Balance for its 30 other varsity sports this spring, BC football announced a three-year agreement with Adidas, which runs through the 2023 season.
BC is believed to be the first FBS school with a football-only apparel agreement, according to The Athletic.
The Eagles wore 1984-inspired retro uniforms every game last season. They were 3-3 in the fan-favorite white and gold combination—a set BC hadn’t rolled out since its 2015 showdown with Notre Dame in Fenway Park—3-1 in the maroon and gold and 0-1 in its revamped Red Bandana kit. BC had worn the maroon and gold throwbacks a total of four times during the 2018 and 2019 seasons, posting a 2-2 record in those games.
The Eagles’ new (but old) look in 2020 said goodbye to the maroon helmet stripe, except for the Red Bandana game when BC slapped a shiny, paisley-patterned streak onto its gold domes.
It was all part of a distinct pivot from the Eagles’ regular home and away Under Armour uniforms—marred by unnecessary piping—that the program debuted in 2016.
Wednesday’s uniform launch is the latest rush of excitement for a program that reeled in its highest-rated recruiting class since 2004 this offseason and ranks higher in returning production and projected SP+ than it has since 2018, not to mention an unchanged staff for year two of the Hafley era, which began with a 6-5 record and two near top-15 upsets.
“I think anytime your players are happy, and I think anytime anything benefits recruiting, which I think this does, I think everybody’s happy,” Hafley told The Athletic in April.
“I think if you ask any athlete, anytime they’re going to get more of something, that always fires them up. When you get a locker, and it’s full of new stuff and a lot more stuff than they’re used to having, I think that’s huge, and that’s what you’re going to see.”
Hafley and his staff will actually be allowed to show those uniform-adorned locker rooms off to recruits this summer now that the NCAA’s dead period is over. It was officially lifted on June 1, marking the first time Hafley has been able to host recruits in Chestnut Hill because of the pandemic.
