UCLA Bruins Football: A History of Alternate Uniforms, Including the Black Jersey Era

The UCLA Bruins football team, since its founding in 1919, has proudly displayed gold and blue. For many years, the team maintained a classic look, with only minor stylistic changes to the uniforms. However, in the early 2000s, UCLA began to experiment with alternate uniforms, introducing new designs that sometimes strayed far from the traditional color scheme. This exploration has included various shades of blue, gray, and even black, leading to some memorable-and sometimes controversial-moments in the program's history.

Early Uniforms: A Foundation of Blue and Gold (1919-2000s)

From 1919 until the early 2000s, UCLA's football uniforms remained relatively consistent. The colors were always some form of gold and blue, and the designs were classic. Changes were limited to minor stylistic adjustments.

The Shift to Alternate Uniforms (2005)

In 2005, the Bruins shifted from a darker blue, reminiscent of the Miami Dolphins, to a lighter baby blue. This lighter shade has been a staple for many of the uniforms in the years since. 2010 brought no new changes, the same blue and the only change was a small tint difference in the helmets worn by the players, making the helmets a slightly lighter gold compared to before.

Throwback Uniforms: Paying Homage to the Past

UCLA Football is taking fans back in time with a special uniform tribute to the Bruins' 1954 national championship team. The team will wear the same iconic powder-blue jerseys that became synonymous with UCLA greatness from 1954 to 1970. These throwback uniforms feature the unique white stripes across the shoulders, a striking detail that sets them apart from the more familiar gold-accented jerseys Bruins fans know today.

The powder-blue jerseys, with their curled, white-striped shoulder pads, pay homage to an era when UCLA was a powerhouse in college football. The uniforms are a tribute to legendary head coach Red Sanders and his incredible 1954 team, which went 9-0 and claimed a share of the national title alongside Ohio State. That season was not only a high point for the Bruins but also marked the first year they debuted this now-classic jersey.

The decision to bring back the 1954-inspired uniforms goes beyond aesthetics. These jerseys symbolize a golden era for UCLA Football, a time when the Bruins were setting the standard in college athletics. In 1954, UCLA shared a national championship with Ohio State University. That year, UCLA’s team was a powerhouse that experienced decisive victories in most of its games, including 72-0 over Stanford, 61-0 over Oregon State, 41-0 over Oregon, and 34-0 over USC. This year is the 60th anniversary of that epic year. I wonder whether UCLA will do anything to celebrate it. My main focus in this post is upon the 1954 UCLA football uniforms, which do appear to have been demonstrably different from those of prior years.

The 1954 uniforms featured:

Pale-blue jerseys, with the two white shoulder-stripes. The jersey numbers were white, and mainly appear script-like.
White jerseys, with three shoulder stripes: one gold-colored stripe with a blue stripe along each side. These jerseys had normal football-style block numbers.

UCLA wore its blue jerseys (light-blue, that is) for six games during the 1954 season. The helmets are solid gold-color - no stripe down the center. That was new for the 1954 season. The numbers are clearly the usual football-style block numbers.

In November 2009, UCLA unveiled a throwback jersey for its season, a powder blue jersey with white stripes based off a similar design worn by the 1967 football team - the only year a UCLA player won the Heisman trophy. The uniform was part of a triumphant debut in UCLA’s homecoming weekend, featuring in a 24-23 win against Washington. It was also UCLA’s first Pac-10 win in six games.

The "L.A. Nights" and the Dark Uniform Era (2012-2014)

For the past two seasons, the UCLA Bruins football team has experimented with all sorts of uniforms that deviate from their classic powder blue-and-gold uniform combo. They started down this path of darkness in 2012 with their inaugural “LA Nights” uniform. It was mostly navy, and it wasn’t all that bad if I’m being totally honest here.

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UCLA's decision to don an all white alternate uniform in its annual matchup against USC was met with some criticism; the Bruins chose not to wear their classic blue and gold in the rivalry game. But any disappointment from fans over the uniforms evaporated by the end of the game, replaced by disappointment over the result - a 50-0 defeat at the Coliseum.

After a historically poor performance in the all white uniforms, UCLA next foray into alternate uniforms - its dark blue L.A. Nights outfit - came with a different record setting performance as running back Johnathan Franklin set the UCLA all-time rushing record. Franklin didn’t have to wait long to enter the record books; on his third carry of the game, he scampered 37 yards for a touchdown, surpassing Gaston Green’s previous record of 3,731 yards in the process.

The Bruins wore their L.A. Nights uniforms a second time in 2012 in their final regular season game against the Stanford Cardinal at the Rose Bowl. UCLA came into the game having already clinched its spot in the following week’s Pac-12 Championship game while Stanford needed a win over UCLA to earn its spot in the title game.

The "L.A. Midnight" Uniform (2013)

In 2013, they debuted a black “LA Midnight” uniform. It didn’t go well at all.

UCLA broke out its black L.A. Midnight uniforms against Washington in then-freshman Myles Jack’s breakout game at running back. A week after Jack got his first carry, he officially became a household name against Washington, running for four touchdowns in UCLA’s 41-31 win.

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Playing on national television at the Sun Bowl, UCLA wore its L.A. Midnight uniforms once again. After a tepid start, UCLA proved to be no match for its opponent Virginia Tech, scoring 28 fourth-quarter points en route to a 42-12 victory. Then-redshirt sophomore quarterback Brett Hundley was the star of the game, passing for 226 yards and two touchdowns and running for another 161 yards and two touchdowns.

The "L.A. Steel" Uniform (2014)

UCLA’s descent into the void continued with their “LA Steel” uniforms from last season, and again, it didn’t go well. Nov. 1, 2014 - UCLA vs. UCLA will debut its new L.A. Steel uniform in Saturday’s Homecoming game against Arizona. The uniform features a grey jersey with blue-and-gold stripes and numbers, grey pants, gold shoes and a matte grey helmet. “I love them,” said sophomore defensive end Eddie Vanderdoes. “Every time we play either black or a new uniform, we play really well so I’m excited to break them out this week.

The "City" Alternate Uniform

Now, you’d think that adidas and UCLA would get tired of this thing after three seasons, right? You’d be thinking wrong, because UCLA has unveiled their new “City” alternate, and guess what: It’s all-black! Yeah, there’s not much to say other than that this is not a good look for the Bruins. Wacky alternate uniforms are all the rage in college football right now, but with great alternate uniform power comes great alternate uniform responsibility, and it appears that UCLA needs that particular responsibility revoked if this is what they’re going to allow their school’s football team to wear awful alternates every season. However, I’m sure there’s some of you out there who probably like this look for UCLA and I’d definitely like to hear why. Or, you can use the comments section to pile on. It’s your choice, and I might be encouraging you to do the latter.

Changes in the 2010s and Beyond

Considered an ugly uniform by many fans, dark navy blue, off-hue gold lining and off-putting light blue filled the original alternate uniforms in 2010. In 2015 that was replaced by purely black uniforms with bumble-bee reminiscent gold filling the numbers and nameplates surrounded by a blue lining that could hardly be attributed to the known Bruins' blue.

As for the regular uniforms, UCLA decided to leave them how they were; this, as many uniforms tend to have, became a trend for the next decade.

2020 brought a small change of a darker shade of blue but nothing else noteworthy.

2025, the most recent year, has brought the biggest design change to the uniforms since the 2015 alternates, adding a new diamond pattern to the jerseys in a partnership with adidas. With Nico Iamaleva at the helm, perhaps they are.

The smallest change might have been the biggest in 2025, because the Bruins' were added to the Big Ten and henceforth received a Big Ten patch on all of their jerseys.

The Impact of Uniforms

As time goes on there will certainly be many more changes made to the Bruins' football uniforms, but the small things can really affect the spirit of the crowd. Ugly uniforms can cause the focus of the game to turn to the less than ideal coloring. UCLA has cracked the code on the uniforms, they did so long ago, that is why they have remained so similar for so long and they will most likely stay that way for a.

Early Uniform Details (1919-1921)

This post will deal with the UCLA football uniforms for the period 1919 through 1921. In this post, I intend to review UCLA’s football uniforms starting with the first season, 1919. I am sure that there are variations on most, if not all of these uniforms - variations which were worn during the same season and sometimes during the same game. And I am not necessarily dealing with “home” versus “away.” So this is just a quick, oversimplified summary. All of the colors stated are conjecture, since I am not aware of any useful color pictures of UCLA uniforms during the period mentioned, nor have I read any descriptions of the colors of any of the uniforms. Unless otherwise noted, pants can be assumed to be some version of the golden-brown color that were typical of football pants in the olden days.

1919: The jerseys were sold dark-blue, and the socks were blue with gold horizontal stripes (though the sock-design cannot be discerned very well in the photograph shown).
1920: The new version consisted of dark blue jerseys with three gold stripes around the torso and both arms. The center stripe was much broader. Notice the two different styles of socks. Since Burnett and Wayne are each wearing different styles, it is hard to conclude that there is any difference to the two styles.
1921: This was probably the first year the team wore numbers (although only on the back). The jerseys were sold dark-blue, with large gold numbers on the back only (visible plainly in the photograph below). The socks shown in the picture below are dark blue with a “tall” gold stripe, but I believe that solid-blue socks were more commonly worn.

tags: #ucla #black #jersey #history