Syracuse Football Uniform History From Ben Schwartzwalder to New Otto Helmets

For the first time in school history, mascot "Otto the Orange" will grace a white helmet as Syracuse breaks from Fran Brown's standard uniform protocol for Halloween afternoon against SMU.

A picture of the first-of-its-kind helmet the Syracuse Orange football team will wear Saturday in a Halloween matchup with Top 20 ranked SMU. | Screen shot courtesy of Syracuse University Athletics.

There was some big off-the-field news this week before Syracuse looks to win back-to-back ACC regular season games in successive weeks for the first time in five years. There is a rare uniform change coming as SU hosts SMU Saturday (Halloween) afternoon (12:30 p.m. ET / ESPN2).

The football program made the news official on social media Monday, that for the first time ever, school mascot "Otto the Orange" will appear on each side of a white helmet with blue and orange stripes down the middle and a white facemask.

The Orange will wear their customary blue home jerseys and orange pants, not the orange jerseys and pants the team did up last season in an all-orange look on a Halloween Friday night loss to North Carolina.

The Syracuse uniform combination for the game against SMU Saturday in the Dome, featuring a first-of-its-kind helmet. | Screen Shot courtesy of Syracuse University Athletics

That was the first time in the Brown coaching era he deviated from his normal uniform protocols (see below), but if there is ever a team that should wear orange when scheduled on Trick or Treat Day, it certainly is the Orange.

A trend against Fran Brown's preferences for the team's uniforms

Unlike 'Cuse teams under Scott Shafer and especially Dino Babers whose squads had a different look for each game, Brown prefers to keep the team's fashion pretty simple. Orange helmets with the blue block "S" and orange pants, blue jerseys at home and white jerseys away. That's it.

The only time under Brown that has changed previously was the aforementioned UNC game last year, but for the obvious reason explained. It also sort of leads to this season, a new, out-of-the-box thinking AD in Bryan Blair, and his department team featuring a mixture of new hires he brought aboard with trusted longtime veterans who know the near and far reach of Orange Nation.

This year's "Otto the Orange" helmet takes the Halloween look to a new level with the mascot's first-ever appearance on the 'Cuse uniform. and not only gives some love to the lovable character with a fun creative marketing idea, but comes on a day many youth football organizations have been invited to attend.

The one-off game also adds a dash of chic 'Cuse fashion to the players wardrobe representing the school and mascot, which, of course, is what this whole change is also about.

If the player's like the lids, that is all that matters, even though we have been a huge supporter of Brown keeping a traditional look that harkens back to the consistency of SU football uniforms under Dick MacPherson and Paul Pasqualoni between 1981-2004.

A capsule history of some notable Syracuse football uniform tidbits

We have covered Syracuse athletics long enough (52 seasons) to either have been just removed from, or part of, covering several Orangemen and Orange football uniform milestones:

1967 - In the season opening game at Archbold Stadium, Baylor "accodently" brought its white road jerseys. Syracuse, under Ben Schwartzwalder for the middle segment of his 24 year run, preferred to wear white jerseys at home. Coach Ben thought wearing white made his team appear bigger and faster. So SU had to convert to its alternate blue jerseys at home, and that trend continued right through Schwartzwalder's final season in 1973.

1974 - Preferring to completely change the image of the program to his own preferences after coming over from Michigan, Frank Maloney ditched the famous orange helmets for white helmets with a football shaped blue decal with orange "SU" letters, along with orange jerseys and white pants at home, white jerseys and orange pants away, a look that lasted through the 1976 season.

1981 - MacPherson, in his first season as head coach after coming from the NFL's Cleveland Browns, added the player's last name to the back of the jerseys, as in the NFL.

2001 - The staid Pasqualoni, especially when it came to the team's uniforms, even got involved in the alternate look as the Orange changed jerseys after warmups for an October 20 game (close to Halloween) against Temple, going from blue to orange jerseys and pants in a rout of Temple.

2005 - In Greg Robinson's first season as head coach, Syracuse wore white at home in its first two Dome games of the season, a loss to West Virginia, and a win over Buffalo. SU has worn blue, orange or on three occasions (2016-17) an awful platinum colored jerseys at home ever since.

2014 - The debut of the different look that went with the Nike Pro Combat uniform set under Shafer. The custom design featured an ode to the "Legend of the Number 44", and tall jersey numbers that were supposed to mimic the New York City Skyline, with an Empire State theme as New York's college team. After five seasons, the current more traditional look was brought back under Babers and John Wildhack, up to the present season.

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