Adidas is getting way too much credit for one important aspect of Tennessee’s new football uniforms
The Tennessee Vols began their rollout of their new Adidas uniforms this week after officially making the switch from Nike.
The Tennessee Vols began the rollout of their new Adidas uniforms this week after officially making the switch from Nike on July 1.
Tennessee unveiled new uniforms across numerous sports on Monday.
The Vols’ new home football uniform was among the options revealed, and there weren’t many changes — something that delighted most fans and analysts.
Tennessee’s home uniform was pretty much already perfect, so there was no need for a big update.
For some reason, though, Adidas has been getting much of the credit for keeping it simple with Tennessee’s new football uniforms.
“Hey, Adidas, great stuff here, babe,” said On3’s JD PicKell this week while reviewing the new UT football uniform. “Really good stuff on the new Tennessee uniforms. This is teach tape for every brand taking over a uniform in college football. You don’t need to do too much. You don’t need to make it about you… I think this is really good stuff by Adidas.”
Tennessee deserves the most credit here, not Adidas.
And that’s because Tennessee has nearly complete control over the design of the uniforms.
“It is important to note that 10 years ago, when Tennessee was with Adidas the last time, Adidas had control over uniform design,” said VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs in 2025. “That’s not the case now. Tennessee designs their uniform and sends the mocks to Adidas or to Nike or whoever and says this is the direction we want to go. So the color matches better. They have much more control in what it looks like. So it’s not just that something gets thrown at you by a shoe company and they say, hey you got to wear those uniforms. That’s not the case here, as Tennessee, with whoever they’re with, will have pretty much full uniform control on the design.”
Adidas will be a great partner for Tennessee moving forward — especially in the NIL space — but the Vols’ athletic department and creative team deserve the majority of the credit for not making unnecessary changes to an already-classic look.