Appreciate the thoughtful response. Like you, I go back to the early '80s with the team.
My biggest quarrel with the Nike kits in pics 2-7 is that it took us away from our branded look. Every iconic program has a branded look that's decades in the making.
Nike didn't ***** with the trad look for other iconic programs, but they did with us. Alabama didn't change, nor did Texas, USC, FSU, OSU, LSU, UGA, Mich, etc, etc. Nike never went away from the classic look for all those other programs. But Nike changed our branded look pretty radically not only with the uniforms, but also stuff like the "Clam". We stopped looking like the U imo
I believe our classic, traditional graphics were a big part of the creation of our brand. Nike took us away from that. Adidas brought it back. Hence my preference for Adidas
Bottom line for me: Any apparel company that outfits us can play around the edges, but our look should be based on trad '80s/90s, '95-'98 Nike and recent Adidas graphics.
I hear what you are saying, and you are not wrong.
Let me just say this. A lot of what we consider to be "classic" is from the 80s/90s. We did not go to the split-U white helmets and the orange/white/green until more recently than many people think (70s mostly). Most of the programs you cite had similar uniforms for several decades longer. Just pointing that out.
When it comes to the "classic" look of the 1980s, I always laugh when I see Melvin Bratton posting on FaceBook that we need to go with longer sleeves again. Yeah, that's one thing that I don't think is ever coming back.
Yes, our 1980s/early 90s uniforms were simple. We were using Russell for most of the time, not Nike. I do agree that Nike made changes, and maybe the changes were not necessary for our program. But I think that the apparel industry has changed to the point that is now better to have a once-a-year alternate rather than changing the entire uniform every 4 years like we did from the late 1990s to the early 2010s with Nike.
FInally, I want to make a point about the "adidas brought it back" comment. And it covers two main things.
2015 was the first year that adidas made our uniforms, while Golden was still the coach and Beta Blake was still the AD. And they gave us, perhaps, the worst jersey in decades. It wasn't until SOMEONE ELSE arrived (Mark Richt) that he pushed for the return to simplicity. That wasn't an adidas idea. We see what adidas has produced, from the first year to the Parleys and beyond, letting "adidas" get creative with our jerseys has been WORSE than letting Nike get creative with our jerseys.
No, the push to return to simplicity came from Richt. And I'm glad that we stuck with it.
And we can certainly insist on it with Nike. But, ****, imagine doing a few throwbacks to the first few Nike jerseys, but with better material and stitched numbers/letters. Could be fun.