Outrage over length of football pants? Where ya been? Shorts are in

OU kicker Tate Sandell drew attention for wearing extremely short football pants during a game against Tennessee.
Despite NCAA rules requiring pants to cover the knees, players and referees have largely ignored this for years.
Coaches like Mike Gundy and Deion Sanders have expressed frustration over the trend of players wearing their pants above the knee.

Because accuracy is essential in journalism, I am making a change effective immediately.

The clothing item college football players wear on the lower half of their bodies will no longer be called football pants; I will henceforth call them football shorts.

And it’s not because of OU kicker Tate Sandell.

Oh, the shorts that the Sooner boomer wore Saturday during OU football’s prime-time game against Tennessee were extreme. Extremely short, that is. They definitely made everyone sit up and take notice of college football’s rising hem lines, starting with the broadcast crew.

Chris Fowler called them short shorts.

They sounded amused at first but then became almost agitated, like they couldn’t believe they were seeing such a thing on the field.

To which I say, “Where ya been?”

Even though the NCAA rule book stipulates that players should wear pants that cover the knees, they’ve been ignoring that rule for years. So have referees. Sandell is hardly the first player to wear his pants so short that, well, they’re shorts. 

Even though he said ripped pants forced him to keep ‘pulling them up a little higher trying to get them to stay,’ there’s photographic evidence that he’s been wearing the short shorts all season. 

By the way, I don’t have any reason to believe the article of clothing the OU kicker has been wearing is any different than what R Mason Thomas or Isaiah Sategna III are wearing. Sandell just pulled them way up.

Or tucked them under.

Or something.

How the pants are shortened probably varies, but players have been doing it for the better part of a decade. At first, the pants were hitched just above the knee. Then slowly but surely, they went higher and higher.

During the College Football Playoff to cap the 2022 season, I was watching one of the games on TV when I noticed a Michigan player whose pants were at least a hand length from his knee.

That seemed jarring then.

Now, it’s the norm.

During spring practice a few months after that playoff game, I found myself in a spirited conversation about the length of football pants with a coach known to have spirited conversations: Mike Gundy.

“Officials have been talking about it for five years,” the former Oklahoma State coach said. “They’ll come to me in the locker room when we have a meeting before a game, and they’ll say, ‘Coach, you gotta help us with uniforms. You gotta get ‘em down over their knees.’ 

“And I said, ‘Listen, if they’re not smart enough to cover themselves, don’t worry about it.’”

Two years earlier, Gundy said he showed his players a picture of himself during his OSU days to try to encourage them to protect themselves a bit better.

“I had every pad known to man,” he said.

But most college players aren’t interested in wearing knee pads at all. Frankly, they’re just following the example that NFL players set. Very few of them even wear their pants over their knees.

All of it makes Deion Sanders seethe. The Colorado coach said earlier this year at Big 12 Media Days that he’d like to see college players fined for wearing their pants above their knees.

“We’ve got guys out there in biker shorts,” he said.

Preach!

“That makes me sick because I’m a football guy — I played this game at a high level and I have so much respect for this game,” he continued. “How can we allow guys out there in biker shorts, no knee pads, no nothing, literally pants up onto their thighs.

“Let’s have more respect for this tremendous game.”

Now, it bears mentioning that Neon Deion was fined numerous times for uniform violations when he played in the NFL.

Do as he says, not as he did?

Sure sounds like it.

Listen, I love football uniforms. Classic looks. New-age varieties. Matte helmets. Chrome domes. I’ll happily debate why Notre Dame’s golden helmets are tops or how it’s possible to love Oregon’s ever-changing jerseys while also believing the Ducks should wear as much kelly green as possible as often as possible.

But people who are getting fired up lately about how much leg players are covering?

I’ll say it again, “Where ya been?”

College football players were given an inch and have taken 10 or 12. Maybe more in Sandell’s case. Does that make him the favorite to win the Thighsman Trophy?

Mandatory attire for the awards ceremony: football shorts.

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.