18Champs
Member
like Auburn originally wore Purple and Gold?
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I've been wondering about how common certain colors were within CFB. I decided to dig through all P5 conference schools (plus Notre Dame and BYU) and look at their colors. Whenever possible I went off of the official athletics web safe colors and, if those were not available, the web safe university colors. Some schools only provide Pantone colors, so spot checks were done on the official colors they posted to get a closer approximation.
A quick look shows that the colors present as official athletics colors are as follows:
You can also look here to see a roughly grouped colors for all the schools.
It’s interesting to see that red, white, and yellow/gold dominate the colors. Some schools even share the same primary color. For example, USC, Alabama, and Indiana all share the same Red, Pantone 201.
Some other interesting facts that came up while doing research:
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I've been wondering about how common certain colors were within CFB. I decided to dig through all P5 conference schools (plus Notre Dame and BYU) and look at their colors. Whenever possible I went off of the official athletics web safe colors and, if those were not available, the web safe university colors. Some schools only provide Pantone colors, so spot checks were done on the official colors they posted to get a closer approximation.
A quick look shows that the colors present as official athletics colors are as follows:
- Red: 29 schools. Includes Cardinal, Crimson, Garnet, Maroon, Red, and Scarlett
- White: 24 schools. Includes White and Cream.
- Gold: 21 schools.
- Blue: 16 schools.
- Black: 13 schools
- Orange: 12 schools
- Purple: 6 schools
- Green: 4 schools
- Grey: 2 schools
- Yellow: 2 schools
You can also look here to see a roughly grouped colors for all the schools.
It’s interesting to see that red, white, and yellow/gold dominate the colors. Some schools even share the same primary color. For example, USC, Alabama, and Indiana all share the same Red, Pantone 201.
Some other interesting facts that came up while doing research:
- Ivy League schools played a large role in color and mascot selections in the earliest football teams. Schools often copied the IVy League colors or were reactionary against them, seeking to be radically different from them.
- Florida State (then Florida College) at one point became a women's college and the football team went off to the University of Florida.Florida's football beginnings are all thanks to FSU. Back on colors, Florida State’s Garnet color is the combination Purple and Crimson from Florida State College’s Purple and Gold and Florida Female College’s Crimson. Edit: Because some Florida fans. I was going off the histories I found.
- Clemson’s Colors were originally Red and Blue. There are competing stories about the color changes. The first story states that when the first football team was formed in 1896, the coach came from Alabama Polytechnic (renamed Auburn) and brought with him the Tiger mascot and the colors of Orange and Purple. The second story is that a professor pushed for the colors Purple and Gold, colors that Auburn wore.
- Syracuse’s colors were originally Pink and Pea Green then Rose Pink and Azure Blue before becoming their now Orange. Fortunately, that means we get to avoid seeing uniforms like this and this. Otto is pretty amusing though.
- NC State’s original colors were Pink and Blue and were chosen by literary societies.
- Kansas’ original colors were Maize and Sky Blue, taken from the University of Michigan. When the football program started, Crimson was urged to be added due to money for the field being donated by a Harvard man. Staff who attended Yale insisted that Yale’s blue not be overlooked. Thus, Kansas’ colors are a mix of Michigan, Harvard, and Yale.
- Texas has had several different colors throughout its lifetime. The original football colors were gold/yellow and white and has also included bright orange, maroon, and blue.
- Ohio State’s original colors were going to be orange and black, but were changed because Princeton already had those colors. The colors were changed to scarlet and grey because they liked how they looked together.
- Penn State’s original colors were Dark Pink and Black. Legend has it that the colors were changed because the baseball team was mocked and because colors were not colorfast back then, so the sun would change the pink to white.
- LSU’s original colors were blue and white. Some football players wanted to dress up their grey uniforms a bit and, with the coaches approval, went to town to get some ribbon. Purple and Gold ribbons for Mardi Gras had come in, but green had not come in yet. So, the players grabbed purple and gold and decorated their uniforms, starting the colors of purple and gold at LSU.
