After a much-needed bye, the Michigan State University football team returns to the field this Saturday. The Spartans take on the Iowa Hawkeyes, in yet another prime-time matchup.
For the Spartans’ homecoming game - their fourth home game of the season - they have announced a uniform combo that has yet to be worn this season.
With a social media reveal Wednesday evening, MSU announced they will be wearing a green helmet, green jersey, and green pants for this week’s game. The helmet dons the traditional white Spartan head logo, and a green facemask. The combo goes hand-in-hand with MSU promoting a “Green Out” at Spartan Stadium for this game.
This marks the Spartans’ fourth uniform combo in seven games this season, with the green facemask being the difference from the all-green combo the Spartans wore at Boston College in September. In all three games played at Spartan Stadium so far this season, MSU had worn green helmets, green jerseys and white pants.
The last time MSU hosted Iowa was in 2017, a 17-10 win for the Spartans. That was MSU’s first-ever time pairing the then-newly introduced white helmets with green jerseys. In their last matchup in 2023, MSU debuted a white Block S helmet against the Hawkeyes. This will mark the first time MSU has gone all-green against Iowa.
Iowa has yet to formally announce a uniform for this week. Their traditional road combo is a black helmet, white jersey and yellow pants. They did, however, tweet what appeared to be some sort of alternate uniform teaser for this week, but that was quickly debunked by their Associate Athletic Director, Caleb Saunders.
The all green uniform selection was met with mostly praise on social media from the MSU fanbase, and I happen to agree.
The Spartans are looking for a win after a tough stretch of games, and to me, the all-green combo has always meant business. Any fan who also wanted a new combo added to the closet this year has also been (somewhat) appeased, as the green facemask technically checks that box.
I do wish they’d switch up the helmet logo at some point this year, as myself and Spartan Nation would love to see Gruff Sparty, or some other change. I would also love to see MSU wear black at some point this season.
Although we have seen a coaching change since their introduction, the “Shadows” uniforms were promised to be regular features in the MSU rotation, and not special alternate uniforms, which they have become.
Next week, the Spartans travel 63 miles to take on in-state rival Michigan. The last time the Spartans played in Ann Arbor, they debuted an all-white helmet with a white Spartan logo, similar to the 2021 all-green set. Will we see something new from MSU? Or another all-white set with a normal logo like we have seen in the first three road games this season?
Either way, I am looking forward to it.
