Syracuse is taking a rare swing with its look this weekend.
When the Orange host SMU on Saturday afternoon, they’ll do it with a uniform twist that the program had never rolled out before: Otto the Orange will appear on both sides of a white helmet with blue and orange stripes running down the middle and a white facemask. The school made the change public on social media Monday.
It’s a Halloween game, and Syracuse is dressing the part without going fully off script. The Orange will stay in their usual blue home jerseys and orange pants, rather than the orange-on-orange combination they used last season in a Halloween Friday night loss to North Carolina.
That was the only real break from the standard formula in the Brown coaching era. Otherwise, Syracuse has stayed loyal to a simple setup: orange helmets with the blue block “S,” orange pants, blue jerseys at home and white jerseys on the road.
That consistency has been part of the program’s identity under Brown, especially compared with the more frequent uniform experiments of the Scott Shafer and Dino Babers years. This one, though, has a different feel. Bryan Blair’s athletic department has leaned into a fresh approach, and this helmet design gives the school mascot a first-time spot on the uniform while also fitting a Halloween week atmosphere that includes youth football groups being invited to attend.
If the players like the helmets, that’s the main thing. But for Syracuse fans who like a traditional look, the program’s uniform history has plenty of touchpoints worth remembering.
In 1967, Baylor showed up to Archbold Stadium wearing white road jerseys, which forced Syracuse under Ben Schwartzwalder to switch to blue at home. Schwartzwalder had preferred white jerseys at home because he believed they made his team look bigger and faster, and that alternate home look stuck through his final season in 1973.
In 1974, Frank Maloney made a much bolder change. Wanting to put his own stamp on the program after arriving from Michigan, he abandoned the orange helmets and went with white helmets featuring a football-shaped blue decal with orange “SU” letters.
The team paired that with orange jerseys and white pants at home, and white jerseys with orange pants on the road. That look lasted through 1976.
Another notable adjustment came in 1981, when Dick MacPherson added players’ last names to the back of the jerseys, just as the NFL does.
Paul Pasqualoni, known for keeping things steady, still joined in on one alternate-uniform moment. On October 20, 2001, Syracuse changed after warmups for a game against Temple, trading blue jerseys for orange jerseys and pants before rolling to a rout.
The program then had a home uniform change again in 2005, when Greg Robinson’s first season included white at home in the first two Dome games, a loss to West Virginia and a win over Buffalo. Since then, Syracuse has worn blue, orange or, in 2016-17, the platinum uniforms at home.
The most dramatic recent change came in 2014, when Syracuse debuted its Nike Pro Combat look under Shafer. That set included a tribute to the “Legend of the Number 44” and jersey numbers designed to resemble the New York City skyline, part of an Empire State theme. After five seasons, the Orange returned to a more traditional look under Babers and John Wildhack, and that has carried through to the present season.
Now comes another one-game wrinkle, this time with Otto front and center.
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