Every major college football practice is all the same, more or less. The offense is dressed in one colored jersey, either the same color the team wears for its home games, or white. The defense is dressed in the opposite. And then there are the quarterbacks, who wear... red? Black? Green? Yellow?
The kaleidoscope of colors utilized by FBS programs has long been a fascination of mine, but that fascination kicked in to a full-on obsession when I logged onto the photo server we use here at The Scoop and saw this beauty looking back at me.
That's Florida State's DJ Uiagaleilei dressed in turquoise. That color has long held a powerful connection to the Native American community, and Florida State athletics has worked it into wardrobe previously, but this was the first I'd seen of it on the football field.
For FSU and FSU specifically, it was perfect. It was different enough to provide a visual caution to the subconscious of oncoming defenders -- WARNING! You are about to make a very poor decision for your security on this football team! -- while also fitting in to FSU's color palette. It was different from the garnet and white that the rest of the Seminoles wear, but not so different that it clashed with the rest of the colors on the uniform. It stuck out without sticking out like a sore thumb. That uniqueness to Florida State and Florida State specifically spoke to me. I had to know more.
A search of all 134 FBS schools revealed that they sorted themselves roughly into two groups: those whose non-contact jerseys blend in to their existing visual spectrum, and those who want their QBs to clash with the rest of their teammates.
Here's what I mean: some schools dress their QBs in their 'third' color, like Clemson in purple, Auburn in orange, or USC in gold.
A second group of schools chooses a color far outside its visual scope, and they're not always the ones you'd think. Oregon has plenty of yellow jerseys in its equipment room to contrast with the offense's white and the defense's green, but not so fast my friend.
An exhaustive search for practice photos of 134 programs revealed these results:
Ultimately, non-contact jersey choice is like everything else in college football: it boils down to the head coach's preference.
Les Miles did not like the color red, so he dressed his LSU quarterbacks in a soothing forest green.
That changed when Ed Orgeron got the job. He put his QBs in gold to match with the school colors (although I did find one photo of Joe Burrow in black).
And then Brian Kelly switched the Tigers' QBs to a traditional red upon arrival in Baton Rouge.
Of the three schools that dress their quarterbacks in purple, two are obvious. There's Clemson, as photographed above, and Northwestern. The third is Iowa State, who wears purple to honor head coach Matt Campbell's alma mater, Mount Union.
At some places, though, QB practice jerseys are something of a tradition to where I'm sure the head coaches know they're allowed to change them even if they wanted to. Oklahoma quarterbacks have worn blue in practice for as long as I can remember and, it turns out, as long as anyone can remember. Sooner quarterbacks were wearing blue in practice when Greg Tipton, OU's executive associate AD for internal operations, was a student manager for Gary Gibbs's Sooners teams of the early 1990s -- five head coaches ago.
UCLA's quarterbacks wore red in practice until Chip Kelly ditched the practice in 2021, keeping his QBs in the same light blue as the rest of the offense -- a practice that DeShaun Foster maintained through his first spring.
At some places, quarterbacks wear one color and non-contact players at other positions wear a different, contrasting color. At New Mexico, the offense wears white, the defense wears red, quarterbacks wear gray, and players healthy enough to go through practice but not healthy enough to hit wear turquoise.
And speaking of turquoise, that beautiful jersey that sent me down this rabbit hole was just for the Seminoles' spring showcase. For regular practices, FSU QBs wear green.