CHAMPAIGN, IL (Chambana Today) – Illinois football is going retro with when they take the field against Michigan on Oct. 19, 100 years and one day after Red Grange’s historic six-touchdown performance against the Wolverines during the Memorial Stadium Dedication Game in 1924.
The Illini will wear 1920s-themed uniforms to commemorate the 100th anniversary of that game, with similarly themed helmets, jerseys, and pants to mirror the attire worn by Grange and the Illini football teams in the early years of the program.
Director of football equipment operations Jake Rosch says “the program has done some throwbacks in the past, but it was really important to be more accurate to the time the stadium opened. We kicked around some ideas, but we ultimately settled on recreating Red Grange’s uniform from 1924.”
The jerseys feature a blue base with tannish-gold stripes that form a pyramid shape and run from the bottom of the shirt to the top of the numbers. The jerseys have white numbers with blue outlines, and the only orange featured is in the Memorial Stadium 100th Anniversary patch that will be worn on all of the Illini’s uniforms throughout the season.
While the jersey design process was pretty simple, recreating the helmets required more time and attention. An airbrushing company in Nebraska will hand-paint each individual helmet. The entire uniform design process started nearly two years ago. It took nearly eight months to develop the concepts and create the initial designs. The Illini worked closely with Nike to settle on the final look.
Director of Athletics Josh Whitman played a key role in the entire process, utilizing his experience as both an administrator and an alum of the football program.