Tennessee football out of top 10 in outlet’s most iconic uniforms. Here’s how they can rise.

There’s not a lot of deep tradition in any uniform combination Tennessee football might wear. Yes, they are iconic in their orange and white, and the Power T stands out, but throughout their heyday in the 1990s and early 2000s, they mainly just wore the orange or white jersey with white pants.

Brad Crawford of 247Sports had the Vols ranked No .11 in a post about the most iconic uniforms in the sport. The LSU Tigers, Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide were just the SEC teams ranked ahead of the Vols.

What stands out about that is all of them mostly have simplistic uniforms. LSU almost exclusively wears the same combination for every game, and Alabama has just two combinations. Here’s what was written about Tennessee football’s combination.

"Tennessee has experimented with Smokey Grey alternates in recent years and the fans love them, but black is the new alternate color expected to return in grand fashion for the 2022 season. At UCF, Josh Heupel and the Knights led the uniform craze with Nike and he’s been unafraid to make subtle changes changes in Knoxville while keeping the recognizable ‘Block T’ as the featured logo. When you hear the phrase ‘orange and white’, you think Tennessee."

By changing combinations over time, the Vols had to fall behind other schools. Even the Texas Longhorns, another program that wears orange and white, were ahead of them, and it had a lot to do with the Longhorn logo on the helmet.

Anyway, with those changes, tradition won’t be what pushes the Vols ahead. Mixing more flare into the uniforms will be what does the trick. The Vols should actually have multiple alternate uniforms, not just the all black that was brought out last year.

What they should do is bring back the Smokey Greys. You may want the Vols to move past Butch Jones, but those uniforms were epic. The first home game in October, to fit in with the weather, should always see UT don those uniforms.

Then, UT should wear it’s all-black jerseys for its last home game before Halloween. Finally, their last home game of the year should be the one time they don all orange. Their first game should involve them wearing retro uniforms, similar to what they did in 2004 against the UNLV Rebels.

That would generally leave three home games in which they wore their standard orange jersey with white pants. On the road, though, it should be different. They should stick with the all white, the names printed in back on the back. Also, they should drop the stripes on the pants on the road.

It was iconic how simplistic the 1990s road uniforms were for Rocky Top. Have the numbers be orange while they are outlined in black. That uniform was always simplistic, and the only time orange pants should ever come on the road is if they are officially a road team in a postseason game or neutral site regular season game.

These combinations will create the perfect mix of buzz, tradition and flare. Tennessee football should own the creative uniform combination, and then their white road jerseys can become the iconic ones for their simplicity. That’s the best way to rise up this list.