After exhaling following a win in last week’s opener, the Michigan State University football team will hit the road this weekend to take on Maryland. This marks both the first road and first conference game of the season for the Spartans.
The Spartans took to social media Wednesday evening with a video containing an unidentified player along a farm road just outside East Lansing. The video confirms that MSU will be wearing white helmets, white jerseys, and white pants on Saturday.
The “stormtrooper look” - as it has come to be known - will contain the traditional green Spartan head logo with the green Greek key stripe. This combo was further teased on a “game week” graphic Monday afternoon. In the past, the white helmet has sometimes featured a Block S, a white Spartan head, and Gruff Sparty. This week’s helmet contains a white facemask (we also have seen a green facemask in the past).
The stormtrooper look has become a controversial look for the Spartan faithful, due to MSU’s less than stellar record donning the all-white combo. After being introduced in 2017, MSU wore the all-white in wins over Western Michigan and Michigan, and have gone 2-12 in the previous 14 games in the combo.
As Jonathan Smith continues his first season as Michigan State head coach, we're still getting clues regarding what he will do regarding his team's uniforms. All promotional photos and videos for this season have contained three distinct combos: all-green, all-white, and all-shadow (black). Despite seeing white pants with green jerseys and lids in week one, is it safe to assume the white jerseys are automatically paired with white helmets from here on out? Time will tell.
MSU’s opponent, the Maryland Terrapins, announced their uniform combo for the week: white/red/white. In 2023, Maryland pivoted from wearing the Maryland flag helmets to script “Terps” helmets full-time, in multiple colors.
The Spartans return home next week to take on FCS opponent Prairie View A&M. I would expect another “traditional” or simple combination before MSU’s marquee out of conference matchup at Boston College the week after.
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