Washington Huskies New Adidas Football Uniforms Leak

To celebrate the beginning of its partnership with adidas, the University of Washington on Tuesday evening held a private event for media members and university representatives aboard a small boat on Lake Washington.

The idea was to show off the football team’s new uniforms in advance of the July 10 unveiling, but photographs and video weren’t allowed. In fact, those in attendance had to surrender their phones upon entry and could only describe what they saw on Twitter or in print.

With the gathered media assembled on a narrow strip of purple carpet, recognizable guitar riffs and cymbals from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Purple Haze” started playing over the loudspeakers. And when the doors of a purple-and-white three-stripes storage container open, three mannequins wearing the Huskies’ new uniforms were standing inside.

But honestly, that seems like a lot of work for an “exclusive” look at uniforms that leaked on Reddit earlier in the day. Not to mention the boat never left the dock because of inclement weather in the Seattle area last night.

Locker room photos show Washington’s new adidas threads aren’t all that different from Nike final iteration, though the biggest difference is the lack of black on the sleeve caps and the contrasting indentation meant to replicate the “jaws” of Husky Stadium’s upper decks (though it was more so Nike filling in the mesh part of its Hypercool template rather than a design feature that remained when Washington moved to the Vapor Untouchable template).

The number font is different, too. Instead of having the upper left corner of each digit capped in gold to “represent the Huskies’ ownership of the Northwest Territory,” they are reportedly now slanted at a 15-degree angle to match the Block “W.” And if you look closely, the numbers are also dotted with sublimated rain drops — appropriate for a city in which in it rains more than 150 days each year.

Washington’s helmets were untouched — including the purple chrome lid — though the same cannot be said of the pants. The Huskies removed the oddly shaped block on the side and the changed the shade of gold to better match the helmet.

The program will also wear “thoughtful but eye-catching” alternate uniforms one or twice each season (starting in 2020). But aside from that, it appears Washington is in good hands with adidas thus far.

We’ll have more photos of the uniforms when the Huskies officially unveil their new look on July 10.