Could WVU Be Adding An All-Black Nike Uniform In 2014?

Uniforms in college football have become an important part in recruiting during a coach’s visit to a major prospect’s home rising to the importance of modern facilities or location of the university. West Virginia University is no different to that trend that continues to sweep programs across the country.

Last April, Nike introduced the latest version of the West Virginia football uniform for the 2013 season, which featured 27 combinations for the team to choose from with the helmet, jersey and pants each in blue, gold and white. The pickaxe numeral styles for the jerseys were also an exclusive design for West Virginia.

Theoretically, West Virginia could be adding a new color to their wardrobe from Nike this year, a color the team has never worn onto the field in all the years prior. Here’s what photographer Wes Wilson caught while scrolling through his Instagram account last Friday afternoon:

#WVU has a shipment of black & gold chinstraps incoming. Could this mean black helmets?? #wvufootball #hmm pic.twitter.com/gznESSFviM

— Wes Wilson™ (@WesWilson247) June 6, 2014

Former Mountaineer running back and current assistant director of football operations, Quincy Wilson, added to the possibilities of West Virginia trading in either the old gold and blue for black on Monday:

It’s come to the shock of no one that reads or sees theses photos from social media, that this is purely speculative at best. The closest West Virginia has come to wearing an all-black uniform was the Nike Pro Combat set honoring the Mountain State's coal miners in 2010.

But let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and say the chinstraps in the picture are a precursor to an all-black Nike uniform actually being worn at some point in the season.

The men’s and women’s basketball programs are the only other major varsity sport at West Virginia University to wear black uniforms, typically as an alternate to the standard school-colored uniforms, at the moment.

For a brand new uniform debut, it would have to be a game played in Morgantown this season of some importance. West Virginia plays six games at home this season against the Towson Tigers, Oklahoma Sooners, Kansas Jayhawks, Baylor Bears, TCU Horned Frogs and the Kansas State Wildcats.

The best choice of those available games would be the night game against Kansas State on November 20 in a season finale in Morgantown, which will also be broadcast on Thursday night on Fox Sports 1. It could mark the first ‘Black Out’ game for West Virginia, and combining the usual rowdy crowd for a night game in Morgantown, could make for quite a scene this November.

Traditionalists might end up rolling their eyes at the idea of West Virginia wearing black instead of the Old Gold and Blue, but it’d be better by leaps and bounds than the battleship gray uniforms featured during the 2012 season.

There is no need for West Virginia to brush the dust off that particular set of uniforms anytime in the future.

You can find this and many others articles about all things West Virginia University, in the pros and on campus, at WVUPros.com.