Nike didn’t tweak much on first round of USC jerseys. Why that’ll change
Late last August, when South Carolina athletics officially approved a transition from Under Armour to Nike, the runway to get off the ground was tight.
College athletic departments do not shop like civilians. They cannot buy a shirt on Amazon and have a package at their door in 48 hours. They must design and order the bulk of their apparel and equipment a year to two years in advance.
Which meant the Gamecocks and Nike had to get moving, considering they only about 10 months between finalizing their deal and the official USC-Nike launch day, which came Wednesday.
“Considering it was a tight timeline, I was actually surprised how collaborative they could be,” South Carolina AD Jeremiah Donati told The State. “... Once the deal was signed, they were hard at work, and they had some feedback for us within a couple of weeks.”
Over those couple of weeks, Donati said, South Carolina’s coaches were able to give feedback to Nike in helping designing the items that showed up on shelves Wednesday and will be worn by the Gamecocks this season.
Perhaps the most-anticipated piece of Nike gear: The South Carolina football jerseys.
But — apart from the swoosh, the fabric and the lighter tone of garnet — the South Carolina Nike jerseys looked almost identical to the Gamecocks’ Under Armour jerseys. Which is not a bad thing. For as much as USC fans vocalized their displeasure about Under Armour over the years, there were minimal complaints about the actual design of South Carolina’s uniforms.
So, why fix something that ain’t broke?
“We’ve got a very clean, strong look across the board, and we wanted to stay close to that,” Donati said. “But we also wanted to leave some optionality for some good alternate uniforms in the future. So that was something that Nike was pretty excited about. I think in the future, you’ll see more of that implemented as time goes on.”
According to South Carolina’s contract with Nike, the company committed to a full redesign of at least three football jerseys by 2030. In addition to that, the Gamecocks will also receive an alternate uniform “as part of an energy program including more than 15 elite college football programs during the first half” of their contract with Nike running through 2036.
So, yes, South Carolina’s football jerseys look the same … for now.
This story was originally published July 3, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Nike didn’t tweak much on first round of USC jerseys. Why that’ll change."
