AU FOOTBALL 12 to 1: What to wear? Orange or Blue?

Editor’s Note: As a daily running feature, Auburn beat reporter Andrew Gribble will pose a question surrounding the Auburn football team as it heads into fall practice, which kicks off Wednesday. He’ll do the best he can to predict an outcome, though he does not vouch for his accuracy.

No. 7
What colors should fans wear to football games this season?

The question appears silly on the surface.

But if you do a little research, you’ll find that, among the diehard Auburn fans, this is as much of a concern as who will be the Tigers’ starting quarterback this season.

When a look of total confusion came over Gene Chizik’s face after he fielded this question shortly before taking the podium at SEC Media Days, one thing was certain.

He doesn’t listen to talk radio or read Auburn message boards.

“Our colors are navy blue and orange,” Chizik said matter-of-factly. “So those are the two colors I vote for. I love them both. I guess it depends on what you look best in.”

If there were a snare drum and a cymbal in the room, one of Chizik’s assistants would have been quick to oblige. He obviously didn’t take the question very seriously.

But Chizik’s dismissal of the debate didn’t quell the Internet buzz. It only ignited it.

First, a history lesson.

Former coach Tommy Tuberville was an admitted fan of orange and frequently wore orange on gamedays. That rubbed off on the majority of fans.

On Tuberville’s weekly radio show leading into last year’s homecoming game against UT-Martin, which planned to wear orange jerseys, a distressed caller asked the coach how fans should alter their gameday attire.

“Wear orange,” Tuberville said.

In 2004, the Auburn athletics department and the Student Government Association established the “All Auburn All Orange” program to “create unity and spirit among the Auburn student body, alumni, fans and student-athletes.” The “All Auburn All Orange” program, according to its Web
site, has “grown to become a celebration of the Auburn Family.”

So, orange, right?

It’s not that easy.

Chizik, while certainly fashion-conscious away from the field, stuck to an old-school look during the Tigers’ spring practices, as he commonly donned a gray, non-hooded sweatshirt with blue Under Armour pants. At A-Day, he wore an orange Auburn polo shirt in the first half and changed into a blue one for the second half.

For what it’s worth, all of Auburn’s coaches are wearing blue polos in their mugshots on the athletic department’s official Web site. And, in what could be considered an even bigger statement, Chizik is wearing a blue polo on the cover of the 2009 media guide.

So is this the dawn of a new era?

“One of the things that I like about (Chizik) is that he embraces AU history and tradition,” one message board poster wrote. “With that in mind, I intend to return to wearing articles that are predominantly blue with orange trim. I’ll leave the orange for the UT necks and the Syracuse wussies.”

There are others, though, with “inside sources,” which could lead to some color conflict when the season opens Sept. 5 against Louisiana Tech.

“Coach Chiz likes the orange in the stadium. I talked to him and he said he is not changing the orange,” another frequent poster wrote. “If you look at pictures of the stadium both ways there is no comparison. But the people that refuse to wear orange are in the minority.

“My brother says he looks terrible in orange so he won’t wear it but the rest of our family all wear orange.”

Exactly what Chizik wants — even though he may not care to notice.

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