Let me get this straight: Orange is an abomination. So, now you understand and will hopefully appreciate that I am leading this ranking of SEC and ACC oranges from a completely neutral playing field. I am an equal opportunity hater. My cooler on the sidelines is overflowing with Haterade, rhymes with Gatorade, which of course was originally developed by scientists at the University of Florida in lemon-lime flavor and…orange.
As Harvard graduate Elle Woods once proclaimed, “Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed.” But my dislike of the color is, you might say, innate, tied to my dislike of Clemson—my parents, brother, and I all attended the University of South Carolina (team colors: a sleek garnet and black) and have been season ticket holders to Gamecocks football games, for better or for worse, since 1988, before the SEC. Then we joined the conference, and not only were trounced by the Tigers most years, but usually suffered losses to Florida and Tennessee every November in a period dubbed the “Orange Crush.”
With Texas joining the SEC this year eight Southern schools include this hideous hue as one of their two primary team colors, so let’s welcome the Longhorns by leaving this now even more hellish landscape of more To yuck.
1. Auburn University
Confession: Similar to Auburn, my high school colors were navy blue and something similar to this slightly darker orange that reminds you of the most beautiful maple and eucalyptus trees of fall. See! As Magnolias made of steelOuiser might say, “I can be nice! Damn it!”
Interestingly, one popular theory is that Auburn’s first football coach, George Petrie, chose these team colors in 1892 as a tribute to his own alma mater, the University of Virginia. Which brings me to this…
2. University of Virginia
As you can see from the official color mix, this shade is, not surprisingly, very similar to Auburn’s, but the Alabama team comes out on top when we get to the second deciding factor: the best use of orange in the mascot (the first deciding factor is how it complements the team’s other primary color). And not only is Aubie the Tiger perhaps The He’s the cutest tiger mascot in the country and WAY less scary than UVA’s D’Artagnan knockoff.
The Cavaliers Do The combination does have a charming backstory, though: Students found the original colors of silver gray and cardinal red too difficult to see on a muddy field. At a campus meeting in 1888 to discuss a change, Allen Potts, a star of UVA’s first football team, wore a blue and orange scarf he had bought at England’s Oxford University. A fellow student grabbed the scarf, waved it, and shouted, “How’s that going to work?”
3. Virginia Tech
The late 1800s were undoubtedly exciting times for the country’s aspiring college football fans. It was then that a committee was formed at Virginia Tech to It is The original colors were black and gray because the team’s athletic wear was too reminiscent of… prison uniforms. The committee chose “Chicago Maroon” and this burnt orange because “no other college was using that particular color combination.” So creative! Still, the Hokies’ hue ranks third on my list because I can imagine driving through Blacksburg’s neighboring Brush Mountain Wilderness in October and seeing those matching pigments in the changing scarlet oaks and sugar maple trees.
4. University of Texas
Sigh. Now we come to the point. Or in this case, rusty nails. God bless them, this burnt orange is almost to dusty looking. Like a shag carpet that hasn’t been vacuumed since the Nixon administration. Yet UT cleverly combines it with a fresh white to balance out the ochre of the 1970s.
The official story, of course, goes back further than Watergate, to 1885, when, according to UT, “two college students on their way to a baseball game stopped at a general store to buy ribbons for the crowd.” The store owner had plenty of orange on hand because…that’s supposed to be a riddle!— nobody else wanted it. The university officially adopted the colors five years later, and the orange ombré became its current shade in the 1960s when then-coach Darrell Royal preferred that version because it most closely resembled the color of a soccer ball. Actually, this is pretty awesome, I’m tempted to move the Horns up a place.
5. University of Miami
Orange in its purest form. And generally harmless! Until you compare it to Miami’s Christmas green. You know when something deeply disturbs you, but you can’t quite put your finger on why? Congratulations, Hurricanes! You’ve descended into that chromatic uncanny valley.
No wonder the university chose these colors in 1926 to represent the state’s orange trees. That’s sweet. But Miami isn’t lower on this list thanks to its cool nickname and mascot, Sebastian the ibis. The bird was chosen because popular wisdom says it is “the last sign of the animal world to seek shelter before a hurricane and the first to reappear after the storm.”
6. University of Florida
This hurts my eyes. It hurt my eyes in 2006 when the Gamecocks lost 17-16 to the Gators. In 2007 when Tim Tebow gave us seven touchdowns. In 2008 when Florida handed their former coach, then our HBC, Steve Spurrier, the worst loss of his career. And damn, it hurt last year when they beat us 41-39 in the final minute of our home game.
And the reason for the color scheme offends my sense of storytelling. The most likely theory is that the blue and orange come from the colors of the two elementary schools that merged to form UF at the turn of the century: East Florida Seminary and Florida Agricultural College. BORING!
7. Clemson University
Ha! I fooled you, didn’t I? You were secure Clemson would be last. Now, while the Tigers are last in my heart, as you will remember, this is a completely unbiased biased report. And as your impartial observer, it is my duty to tell you about the time my parents drove to an away game in Athens in 2001 when the Gamecocks miraculously pulled off a victory. (Mom: “Even the little old ladies in the parking lot we had to walk through were drunk and yelling at us!”) During the game, their seatmate kept muttering four words: Fraud, fraud, Georgia Clemson. Fraud, fraud, Georgia Clemson.
Well, what about cheating? Not only has the Clemson Agricultural College garnet When the combination was changed in 1899, the first football coach, Walter Riggs, initially used the colors of the same-state rival, taking the orange and blue of his alma mater (now Auburn) and replacing them with purple and orange.
Wait, you ask yourself, didn’t Auburn do exactly that to UVA? And UVA to Oxford? You’re right. It’s a Russian doll of fraud and theft! Put them all in jail: Orange is the new yuck.
Side note: You may have noticed that an ACC team is missing from this list. Sorry, Syracuse. Although you are known as “the Orange” and your mascot super sweet, you’re not a southerner and you’re a whopping 250 miles from the Atlantic coast. But damn it, you get an honorable mention for ruining Clemson’s attempt at a perfect 2017 season.
8. University of Tennessee
People rightly have problems with the book and the film The big opportunitybut one quote from the film remains as solid and true as it was back in 2009, when Sandra Bullock, as loyal Ole Miss fan Leigh Anne Tuohy, said it about Tennessee: “I will not wear that bright orange. I won’t. It’s not in my color wheel and I won’t wear it.”
What Bullock called “that garish orange” I’ve long called “faded neon pumpkin.” Who in Dolly’s name thought that looked good? Well, the answer is Charles Moore, president of UT’s athletic association in 1889, who suggested the yellowish orange for the school’s first sports festival that year, supposedly inspired by the centers of American daisies that grew all over campus. Not all students were thrilled—legend has it that one even called Moore “colorblind.” I didn’t say it! She did! But it would explain a lot.
About the colors: To display the colors of each school here, we have used hexadecimal color codes (Hex for short), which are widely used in digital design. This article explains the differences between the various color codes.
Amanda Heckert is editor-in-chief of Garden & Weapon and editor of the magazine book Southern women. She is from Inman, South Carolina, and was previously editor-in-chief of Indianapolis monthly and as senior editor at Atlanta Magazine. She lives in North Charleston with her husband Justin and their dogs Felix and Oscar.
