By Malcolm Butler
With plans to honor the 1972 Louisiana Tech national championship team during Saturday’s homecoming game against Rice, it’s the perfect weekend to go old school.
And that’s what the Bulldogs will be doing … at least with their choice of costume.
The Louisiana Tech Athletics Department unveiled a new (old school) baby blue jersey that the Bulldogs will wear when they host the Rice Owls in a Conference USA showdown Saturday at 2 p.m. at Joe Aillet Stadium.
Although the exact year that Tech football wore baby blue is not known, it has been decades since the Columbia Blue graced the field of The Joe.
Back in 2008 under then Athletics Director (and head football coach) Derek Dooley, the athletics department rebranded its logo and colors. At that time it was decided that only the Lady Techster Basketball program would continue to wear the Columbia Blue while the other 15 athletic teams would sport reflex blue.
For the next decade that decision held true until the 2019-20 athletics campaign.
The Bulldog basketball program was the first of the 15 programs to use baby blue as an alternate color during the 2019-2020 season. The Bulldog baseball program followed closely behind with a baby blue version that the Diamond Dogs unveiled during the 2020 campaign.
In recent years Tech golf and women’s bowling have also begun utilizing baby blue polos as part of their uniforms while the Lady Techster soccer goalies have a baby blue version.
Tech Director of Athletics and Vice President Eric Wood said that the athletics department has an internal policy that limits use of the baby blue alternate uniforms for any of the athletic teams outside of women’s basketball to 25 percent of their contests during their championship season.
As part of the football version of the baby blues, the baby blue is also incorporated into the State and T on the red helmets.
