With the 2025 Tennessee Volunteers football season in the rearview mirror, the Vols’ run with Nike on the gridiron has officially come to a close. In August 2025, Tennessee announced a landmark partnership with Adidas, following the expiration of its deal with Nike in 2026. The Adidas deal will go into effect on July 1, 2026, marking a return to the three-stripe brand for all uniforms, official apparel, and merchandise moving forward.
“This partnership provides us with a significant advantage in the ever-evolving landscape of college sports,” Tennessee AD Danny White said in a statement last fall. “We take pride in our fan base and the competitive edge they offer us. We refuse to partner with someone who does not feel the same way.”
So, with Tennessee moving to Adidas over the summer, the 10-year run of Nike football jerseys has officially ended. You’ll still presumably see the Nike jerseys for the Orange & White game this spring, but when Tennessee begins its 2026 campaign, it’ll be all Adidas from head to toe.
Tennessee wore five uniform combinations during the 2025 season. Including the bowl game, the Vols’ five combinations included Orange-and-White (x5), All-White (x4), All-Orange (x2), Dark Mode (x1), and Smokey Grey (x1).
The front half of the schedule was loaded with the classic home threads. Tennessee wore the orange-and-white uniforms four times in its first six games, including the neutral-site season-opener against Syracuse in Atlanta. The beginning half of the year also saw a rare situation where Tennessee wore its all-orange home threads in a road game at Mississippi State. The Bulldogs held a white-out for that game, and wound up going with all-white uniforms themselves.
The back half of the schedule saw quite a bit of the all-white Stormtrooper look. Tennessee wore the all-white threads in four of its final seven games, including the Music City Bowl contest against Illinois to close down the season. This is also the stretch where we saw the alternate uniforms come out, with Tennessee going Dark Mode against Oklahoma and Smokey Grey against New Mexico State in back-to-back games in November.
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The interesting note for the season is that Tennessee did not elect to wear the white-on-orange road combination, which features orange pants and white jerseys with the white helmet. It’s plausible that the all-orange uniform took its place as the alternate road combo this season.
Here’s a look at how Tennessee Football dressed in the final season of the Nike run in 2025:
- Week 1 (vs Syracuse in Atlanta): Orange-and-White
- Week 2 (vs ETSU in Knoxville): Orange-and-White
- Week 3 (vs Georgia in Knoxville): Orange-and-White
- Week 4 (vs UAB in Knoxville): All-Orange
- Week 5 (at Mississippi State in Starkville): All-Orange
- Week 6 (BYE)
- Week 7 (vs Arkansas in Knoxville): Orange-and-White
- Week 8 (at Alabama in Tuscaloosa): All-White
- Week 9 (at Kentucky in Lexington): All-White
- Week 10 (vs Oklahoma): Dark-Mode
- Week 11 (BYE)
- Week 12 (vs New Mexico State): Smokey Grey
- Week 13 (at Florida): All-White
- Week 14 (vs Vanderbilt): Orange-and-White
- Music City Bowl (vs Illinois): All-White
When the Adidas deal was originally announced, some fans had concerns about what would happen to the uniforms in different sports. There were some poorly-received jerseys during Adidas’ first stretch with Tennessee from 1995 to 2015, after all. But according to Volquest’s Brent Hubbs back in August, Tennessee will have creative control moving forward as it partners with Adidas.
“We have creative control, but they have talented creative people,” Tennessee AD Danny White said in an interview with Volquest. “We have talented creative people. I think that anytime you’re a priority for someone, I think that there’s more opportunity for ideation and thinking about how do we continue to have our foot on the pedal in terms of innovation. But we will always make sure we’re honoring our traditions and Adidas knows how important that is.”
