/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/37620832/bk4ucyccyaas0im.0_standard_730.0.0.jpg)
Earlier this year in April, Mississippi State announced commemorative uniforms for the 2014 football season opener against Southern Miss. The game opens the 100th season of football at Scott Field, and the uniforms -- a bit of a throwback -- were meant to memorialize the occasion.
Here's the new @adidasFballUS uniform we will wear on 8/30 to commemorate the 100th Anniv. of Scott Field. #HailState pic.twitter.com/XD1QJd6c28
— MSU Football (@HailStateFB) April 10, 2014
And through the summer months, nothing changed with that, and MSU fans went about their business expecting to see the special threads come Saturday, August 30th. Apparently, though, that has changed.
Due to a ruling by the NCAA that only school names or nicknames can be worn on the uniforms of teams, MSU has scratched the formerly planned Hail State uniforms for a similar design with "Mississippi State" across the chest.
It first came to my attention from this tweet reply to blog friend SEC Sports Rountable by MSU AD Scott Stricklin:
@secsrt The jerseys Saturday say "Mississippi State".
— Scott Stricklin (@stricklinMSU) August 29, 2014
Then shortly thereafter, Associate AD Scott Wetherbee provided further information and even a picture of the new threads for Saturday:
Mississippi St. informed this month only school names/nicknames allowed on jersey. Wearing this Saturday. #HailState pic.twitter.com/L8Jg28uwiv
— Scott Wetherbee (@scottrwetherbee) August 29, 2014
It's hard to tell from the small picture if the new uniforms will feature the double white shoulder stripes that originally caught my eye and gave them a throwback feel to the great late 1990s unis, so I guess we'll either just find out Saturday or maybe we'll see more tomorrow. Either way, it seems like the Hail State front jersey is gone, which I can't say I'm sad about. Don't get me wrong, I love to use hail state as much as the next MSU fan. But the school had gone a bit crazy with it recently, so I'm not just completely sad to see it go in this instance. Frankly I would have really been pumped to see the old school "Miss State" across the front, but alas, it seems that it is not to be.
According to Scott Stricklin, it appears that MSU did have approval to use the Hail State when it announced them in the spring -- makes sense considering the fact that they had Adidas work up the model used to show them off -- but something apparently changed along the way and the NCAA changed their minds. You know the NCAA: Only the important things get taken care of up there.
Maybe we'll get lucky and the NCAA will have outlawed the awful, big M-State logo that was supposed to go on the pants as well.