Florida vs. South Carolina: Gators pairing white helmets with all-blue uniforms

Florida will wear its new(ish) white helmets with blue jerseys and pants on Saturday against South Carolina, the program announced through its equipment team’s Twitter account.

The uniform combo for Senior Day being chosen by Florida’s seniors is no surprise, but what might be a minor shock is that they picked a uniform combination Florida has never worn before. The Gators’ long-awaited white helmets only debuted in 2015, and have only been worn three times: With worn with orange tops and white pants against Vanderbilt and with blue jerseys and white pants against Florida State in 2015, and with an all-white outfit at Tennessee in 2016.

The only other time Florida has worn white helmets with all-blue uniforms, to my memory, is in 2009 against Florida State — but those lids were part of what was intended to be a one-off usage of a special Nike Pro Combat uniform. Florida wore those same white helmets the next week against Alabama in the 2009 SEC Championship Game, but has not worn them since, and those are not believed to be in the Gators’ rotation of possible sartorial selections.

These white helmets are, though, meaning that Florida has two helmets, three jerseys, and three pants from which to create its uniforms — the basis for 18 distinct selections.

After Saturday, the Gators will have worn an incredible 13 of them under Jim McElwain.