AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Virginia Tech will reveal new football uniforms soon — and yes, the Hokies are ditching the divisive collarbone stripes.
Both athletic director Whit Babcock and football coach Brent Pry, who are attending the ACC's spring meetings at The Ritz-Carlton, confirmed the upcoming reveal.
Neither Babcock nor Pry gave a full rundown of what the new unis will look like, but they did confirm it'll have a more classic feel that goes away from the collarbone-striped look Tech adopted in a re-brand ahead of the 2018 season.
Pry said he went to some of the Hokies coaches and staffers who played during Tech's heyday — like defensive line coach J.C. Price and safeties coach Pierson Prioleau — to get their input, presenting them with a lineup of options and getting from them a thumbs up or thumbs down. They narrowed down the choices and repeated the process before coming to a final design that Pry said pulls from the Michael Vick days.
"It’s a more traditional look and people I believe will appreciate it," said Babcock, who thinks they'll be revealed in "a week or so."
Tech veered that direction with a special uniform that had a modern-retro look in 2021 to celebrate the 1999 team that played in the national championship game The Hokies only wore them against Syracuse and in the Pinstripe Bowl against Maryland, however, with a special "NY" logo on the helmet for the latter as a Yankees tribute. Tech lost both games.
There will likely be more variety with the helmets in this latest iteration. When he was hired in 2014, Babcock aimed to get the VT logo on every helmet design, feeling that the Hokies had gotten away from their brand with various special designs like the Hokies tracks and Flexing Gobbler looks.
Since Babcock began working at Virginia Tech, there have only been two occasions where the Hokies have not featured the interlocked VT on both sides of the helmet: Frank Beamer's final game at Lane Stadium, when Tech had a No. 25 on one side and the school logo on the other, and the 2021 Pinstripe Bowl, when the Hokies had a Yankees logo on one side and the school logo on the other.
"So people may see some of our other logos this year," Babcock said, "and I think they’ll like it."