Tennessee football should save unveiled black jerseys for Ole Miss

They’re back! Excitement was brewing in the air Wednesday as Tennessee football unveiled an alternate jersey combination. That it comes on the heels of the Vols scoring a huge win over the Missouri Tigers only makes things more thrilling.

UT revealed alternate black jerseys that include black pants with double-orange stripes and a white helmet. Rocky Top hasn’t worn black jerseys since 2009, and they wore them with orange pants and white helmets then.

That day was on Halloween, and a Vols team led by Lane Kiffin beat a top 25 South Carolina Gamecocks team led by Steve Spurrier. The alternate uniforms this time around were revealed with a series of tweets by Tennessee football’s Twitter account.

Although these jerseys are exciting, they shouldn’t come out this week. Sure, it’s against South Carolina, the last time they wore the combination, but it would be for a noon kickoff. If Josh Heupel’s program is going to use these jerseys once a year, it must come at the right time.

The right time is either for a home night game in October or a home game on the Saturday closest to Halloween. South Carolina doesn’t fit the bill for either of those. The Vols’ game the next week against the Ole Miss Rebels does.

On Saturday, Oct. 16, UT will host Ole Miss at 7:30 p.m. ET on SEC Network, revealed by the league Monday. Since the Vols visit the Alabama Crimson Tide the next week and have a bye on Oct. 30, the final Saturday before Halloween, this is the closest home game to that holiday.

There’s another obvious reason to use the jerseys at that moment as well, beyond just the night-game atmosphere and the proximity to Halloween. It’s Kiffin’s return to Rocky Top his first time as head coach of an opposing team.

Given the fact that Tennessee football hasn’t worn black jerseys ever since Kiffin left, wouldn’t it make sense for this to be the moment to bring them back? You couldn’t ask for a better setting to prove the Vols are moving towards the future.

Hey, maybe they’ll wear the jerseys both games, against South Carolina and Ole Miss. It’s possible this becomes an entire month of October thing. Next year, the Vols play the Kentucky Wildcats on Oct. 29, so that’s the obvious time to wear them if they have to pick one game.

Either way, they have to wear these jerseys against Ole Miss. Picking South Carolina as the game to do it would be a complete swing and miss in terms of marketing. It may have already been a mistake to unveil them so soon.

At this moment, it seems that everybody is squandering what could make a Tennessee football night game against Ole Miss great. It’s already on SEC Network instead of one of the ESPN games. There’s no indication that Peyton and Eli Manning will call the game. Now, it looks like the black uniforms will come out a week too early.

Given the fact that it could be two 4-2 teams or a 5-1 vs. a 4-2 team depending on what UT does against South Carolina this weekend, top 25 implications could be part of the game as well. Simply put, there’s too much that could make this matchup epic, and the power players shouldn’t mess that up.