jerseys have purple numbers on the front, back and sleeves with a gold center stripe flanked by two purple stripes encircling the shoulders. LSU's purple jerseys have white numbers on the front, back and sleeves with a white center stripe flanked by two yellow stripes encircling the shoulders. Names were added to the backs of jerseys in 1972. LSU has worn gold jerseys four times recently: vs. Vanderbilt in 1996, vs. Notre Dame in the 1997 Independence Bowl, at Florida in 1998 and throwbacks vs. Mississippi State in 2016. LSU also wore gold jerseys as their primary jerseys during the 1940s. Save for the throwback jerseys, LSU wore gold due to the intense dislike of purple exhibited by then-LSU coach Gerry DiNardo. DiNardo's successor, Nick Saban, resurrected purple jerseys for the second game of the 2000 season vs. Houston. Since the wearing of white jerseys has become a tradition for LSU football, the white jerseys are typically worn for both home and away games. The exception is for non-SEC home games, other than the home opener, where LSU wears purple jerseys. Also, though rare, in the case of away games the home teams may choose to wear white, and if so, purple is the default for LSU; this occurred in the 2004 season opener vs. Oregon State, which did not want to wear its black jerseys in the intense Louisiana heat. In 2015, South Carolina was forced to move its scheduled home game vs. LSU to Baton Rouge due to severe flooding in Columbia, South Carolina. Prior to the site change, the Gamecocks declared they would wear white jerseys at Williams-Brice Stadium, so the Tigers wore purple jerseys for the first time for an SEC game in Tiger Stadium (South Carolina was the designated home team) since 1994 vs. Alabama. In 2019, LSU was asked by the Southeastern Conference to wear purple jerseys for its away game vs. Vanderbilt to provide sufficient contrast to the Commodores' gray jerseys. From 1983 through 1994, LSU was mandated to wear purple jerseys at home, due to an NCAA rule which required the visiting team to wear white jerseys (LSU wore white jerseys as the designated home team for the 1987 Sugar Bowl vs. Nebraska and 1987 Gator Bowl vs. South Carolina). In 1995, the NCAA changed the rule to allow the home team to wear white if it obtained prior approval of the