Are these the new Tennessee Volunteers football uniforms?

On July 1st, the University of Tennessee’s athletic program will be having its big reveal of its new Nike gear. The Vols have actually gotten pretty creative in their efforts to drum up hype for the unveiling, as they’ve decided to invoke images of (what seems to be) everybody’s favorite television show. Fall is coming.

However, since this is the logo/uniform world that we’re talking about here, there’s always a strong chance of something getting leaked. The Vols were unable to avoid this, as we’ve got an early look at a couple of Tennessee’s uniform choices for football.

The first look is the home uniform. There’s really no surprise here: Plain orange jersey with white numbers and lettering. That’s been their home look for decades now, and as usual when it comes to SEC country, their fans would burn the stadium down if they messed with the look too much.

However, there’s an interesting wrinkle when it comes to the pants. Halfway down the side of the pants, there’s a checkerboard design. Nike’s been doing some interesting things when it comes to pants design, and it appears that they’ve decided to do a little bit of experimenting with their newest acquisition. We’ll probably see a set of white pants as well, and I’d imagine that the away jersey will just be a reverse of the home jersey.

Now, the second look that we’ve got for you here isn’t the away uniform, but it appears to be an alternate. The Vols had a gray alternate uniform during their final days with adidas and they also half-heartedly tried to make a black alternate jersey work with their color scheme. However, if this is legit, then appears that Nike is trying to mix the two together.

If this is legit, then this will be the first time in Tennessee’s history that the Vols have worn a helmet that isn’t white. It’s definitely an interesting helmet (especially with the checkerboard design on the back, which might be on the regular helmet as well, but that’s just speculation), and we’ll probably get a much better look at it when the entire set of Nike uniforms are revealed on July 1st. But for now, we’ve just got grainy photos to speculate over.

But, what do you think about the new Nike look for Tennessee? Do you think you’ll like it when the finished product is unveiled on July 1st? Or do you already have your mind made up?