When former Texas A&M football wide receiver Ryan Swope entered the visiting locker room in Starkville, Mississippi on Nov. 3, 2012, he found the holidays had come early. 

Instead of the maroon uniform Swope was used to sporting for the Aggies, he discovered a black jersey with maroon stripes, black pants and the most beautiful helmet he’d ever had the chance to play in.

“It’s kind of like Christmas,” Swope said. “You show up, you go downstairs, you open a bunch of presents and Santa Claus has your jersey laid out on the couch, and you’re like a little kid ready to go put that thing on and go get the W.”

Santa, in this case, was then-equipment manager Matt Watson, then-coach Kevin Sumlin and an inner circle of a few key stakeholders determined to bring the gifts to life.

And delivering those presents — A&M football’s first-ever alternate uniform — turned out to be a months-long plot of secrecy, deception, deliveries to Watson’s driveway and a decoy-packing of the team’s equipment truck.

“It’s an exhaustive process,” Watson said. “But it’s very rewarding if you can pull it off, once you see the reaction from the players and everybody. Of course, getting the win is paramount. You have to win.”

Beginning the black out

The Southeastern Conference requires teams who choose to wear white jerseys at home to give advance notice to their opponents. So when Mississippi State decided to honor the 2000 Independence Bowl — where the Jackie Sherrill-led Bulldogs beat the Aggies 43-41 in the middle of a snowstorm — and welcome A&M to the SEC by wearing all-white alternate uniforms, Sumlin had an idea to turn the Bulldogs’ special event on its head.

“Coach Sumlin called me,” Watson said. “He says, ‘We need to do something different about that. We ought to wear black.’”

And so began the plan to debut A&M’s first-ever black uniforms, fulfilling a vision for the Aggies’ brand that Sumlin had as soon as he was hired.

“He used Oregon and Oklahoma State as two examples of teams that had kind of parlayed an alternate uniform identity into a recruiting benefit,” Watson said. “It helped them get attention, is the best way to put it … It gave those two programs an identity, and that’s what he was trying to do with us.”

Initially, the plan was kept to an inner circle of Sumlin, Watson, the head of Adidas’ football department at the time Mark Daniels, then-A&M Vice President for Marketing and Communications Jason Cook and then-President R. Bowen Loftin. 

“The circle was very, very tight at the beginning,” Watson said. “To my knowledge, it was probably five people in the beginning on campus, all the way right up until right before stuff started arriving.”

The uniform side of things was produced by Adidas, with the helmets belonging to the Aggies’ helmet partners at the time, Riddell and Schutt. The hydrographics to create the unique black-fading-to-maroon effect on the helmets were done by a company out of Oregon. 

“I worked directly with Adidas and Jason Cook on the design concepts of what we were throwing around,” Watson said. “I would relay things to Adidas. They would come back with concepts. We talked to Jason and got input back from that side. ‘This is what coach wants to do. Are you guys good with this?’ ‘Absolutely.’”

Then came the hard part: Keeping everything under wraps.

Cloak-and-dagger

Swope says it’s easy for alternate uniforms, though intended to be motivating, to become a detriment.

“You’re a player, and you’re getting so focused mentally, physically for your opponent that you’re not really even thinking about a uniform or a helmet or anything like that,” Swope said. “Sometimes, it can be a distraction if you find out too early.”

Watson agrees. He says he’s never been accused of winning a game for the Aggies, but he has been accused of losing a few. So the decision that week in 2012 was made to keep the uniforms a secret until the last possible moment. 

That meant Watson had to have the equipment personally shipped to his house. Soon, dozens of helmets lined the hallway behind his couch, and boxes began to stack up against his windows.

“There was zero room for error, period,” Watson said. “We didn’t have the luxury to have something not show up on time or not. For us to be able to work on it with as few people as we were working with in order to keep it secret, it was going to take us much longer to prepare everything.” 

That meant taking some risks and making some sacrifices — like Watson making sure he was at home for every delivery, hoping no curious Aggie fans would come wandering past his garage.

“I actually have a picture of my garage with a bunch of the helmets stacked up under my carport that anybody could have seen,” Watson said. “Or something could have gotten taken really easily. So that was a little nerve-wracking on the shipping side of it.”

As the game inched closer, more of the equipment staff was let in on the plot. But there was one last test: getting all the way to Starkville with dozens of players and coaches convinced that the Aggies would be wearing maroon.

So Watson and his staff packed the equipment truck twice. 

“Students were pulling over maroon jerseys on the shoulder pads, putting maroon helmets in the back,” Watson said. “Everybody we packed as if it was like a normal road game, but using a colored jersey. And then we came back up before the truck left one night, and put all of the alternate stuff on the truck, secretively.” 

The deception continued even on game day: As far as Mississippi State knew, A&M would be wearing maroon. The visitor locker room was already packed with maroon apparel by Aggie staffers before the swap to black was made.

Revealed at last

Then, the months of hard work and secrets paid off with the reveal.

“It’s probably the best-looking uniform that I’ve ever played in, to be honest with you,” Swope said. “I wish they would have given us those helmets. It was that cool. It was definitely a treat to show up and black it out.”

Watson says seeing the players’ excitement and hype for the uniforms made the effort worth it.

“Seeing everyone come in one-by-one — and just that look of ‘Oh, wow,’” Watson said. “It validated the work and everything our staff had put in. All the people that were involved in the planning and design process like that made it worthwhile right at that point, and of course, the way the team performed was outstanding.”

A&M would win that game against Mississippi State 38-13, with Swope leading all receivers with 121 yards on nine receptions. Next week, clad in all-white, the Aggies would go on the road and upset No.1 Alabama.

“‘Look good, feel good, play good’ was the motto we always used,” Swope said. “It’s definitely true … It can go one of two ways: either really good or really bad. And that year, every alternate uniform we had was really good.” 

Watson, who was involved in the early stages of planning the Aggies’ newest black uniform to be worn against LSU on Saturday before leaving the program last April, says the new uniforms were first proposed under former coach Jimbo Fisher, and current coach Mike Elko signed off on them after he was hired. 

He hopes the last alternate uniform he had a hand in creating at A&M will perform just as well on the field as his first.

“I have an older son that’s actually on the team,” Watson said. “I know he’s excited about it. It’ll be fun to see it out there and hopefully get a win and put the final stamp on it and make it a complete success.”