LSU’s wearing dope purple helmets that change color to gold under the lights

HI SOMEBODY PLEASE HOLD ME. On Oct. 18, LSU announced that the Tigers would be wearing new uniforms against Mississippi State. But these aren’t just any uniforms — they salute LSU’s 1918 team that didn’t play football that season, and instead went to fight in World War I.

Most notably, these uniforms feature purple helmets that will reflectively change to gold under the stadium’s lights. YES, LIKE AN IRIDESCENT MARDI GRAS BEAD:

HOW’D THEY DO THAT? Well, it wasn’t easy:

The project was outsourced to Gemini Motorsports, a California-based auto shop that had done similar paint jobs on motorcycles and vehicles.

The helmets required four coats of paint to get the full depth, said Stringfellow, who estimated the paint alone cost “somewhere around $1,500 a gallon.”

”It’s the way the paint’s mixed,” Stringfellow said. “The original version had a lot of green in it, and we went through — shoot, I probably have 30 samples of different purple-painted helmets that shift colors from purple to gold and from gold to purple that I stored throughout the project.”

Sure, there’s a lot of purple in these, but together with the white contrast looks pretty slick:

The additional backstory on the history and significance of these uniforms is pretty dang cool. The uniforms will feature an oak pattern throughout. This in reference to the 30 oak trees planted on LSU’s campus to commemorate soldiers from the LSU community who did not return from the war, including one for the “unknown soldier” missing in action.

The Tigers won’t have nameplates on the back this week to honor those individuals, too.

LSU has had a strong military tradition, which dates back to the school’s founding in 1860:

The LSU ROTC program fosters perhaps the University’s first and oldest student organization and its oldest tradition – the military heritage that has been part of the institution since its beginning under General William Tecumseh Sherman, who is believed to have given LSU the nickname “Ole War Skule.” For a number of years, the campus was a former military post, located adjacent to the Mississippi River near what is now downtown Baton Rouge.

Until 1969, ROTC training was required for all freshmen and sophomores at LSU. That military tradition, known as the “Long Purple Line,” will be honored beautifully on Saturday night under the lights.