Tennessee baseball will have a new look this season both literally and figuratively. Of course, Josh Elander steps into his first season as head coach following Tony Vitello’s departure to San Fransisco. But the Vols are also going to have slight uniform changes this season.
As GoVols247’s Ben McKee reported earlier this month, Tennessee will not wear its traditional Sunday cream uniforms with the “Vols” script across the chest. Instead, Elander’s first Tennessee team will wear cream uniforms with block “Tennessee” across the chest.
Nike made Tennessee the uniforms ahead of the 2025 season, but the Vols wore them in just two midweek games a season ago opting to stick with the traditional Sunday cream jerseys along with the new pants that have a thin orange stripe down the side.
During the first ever “Kiv’s Korner” segment on the Mike Keith Show Thursday, Tennessee assistant coach Ross Kivett asked Elander about why the Vols are mixing it up and the fan backlash to the decision.
“Here’s the backstory on that,” Elander said. “Obviously, when it comes to the cream. We love the Vol script. I think everybody does too, but we were talking with some of the captains over the break. We were in time out a little bit. One thing this year is we got to play a little bit better on Sundays than we did last year.
“But we actually got a new uniform from Nike last year that we wore only one time that’s updated material, more consistent with what the guys are wearing each day and really just better for player performance. So talk with the guys like, ‘hey, what do you guys want to do for this year?’ and the vote was ‘hey, let’s move to the newer, updated ones.’”
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While fans have loved the traditional cream uniforms, Tennessee players have often remarked that they are the thickest and least comfortable uniform that the Vols wear. But there’s good news for Vol fans who are upset about the change. This is the last season that Tennessee will wear Nike uniforms, and there’s a real chance that they could go back to the old design under Adidas.
“All for bringing the Vol script back in the future,” Elander said. “I really am. I definitely miss those, but at the end of the day, I think it’s time for some change right there a little bit. We’ll get a little bit better on Sunday.”
The process of designing the new Adidas uniforms is well under way. Creative control over uniforms was a key part of Tennessee’s move to the three stripes and that includes baseball. Elander even hinted that Tennessee is working on bringing back throwback uniforms after moving to Adidas.
“I think we’re all really excited about kind of the retro options, and I’ve been in touch with Chris Burke and some of the former players,” Elander said. “Chris actually sent me some photos of him playing with kind of a UT interlock and then some great pinstripe. So, again, we’ll work with them as we go, I’m really excited about what the capabilities and what we’ll be able to do there, but I think it’ll be very, very cool as we can kind of mix-and-match with those deals and also kind of give a nod to the past and the former players because they were the last ones who wore Adidas.”
Tennessee is 15 days away from opening up its 2026 season against Nicholls at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
