The 2026 college football season is just around the corner, and once again, the West Virginia Mountaineers have made a slight change to their uniform. There is no need to panic; it's nothing too crazy, and it makes a lot of sense. Also, it's just one piece of the uniform...the helmet.Wednesday night, WVU revealed that it has replaced the white matte helmet with one that has a gloss finish. The decal featured is a blue state with a gold flying WV in the center.Glossed up ⚪ pic.twitter.com/s5Vhxd7wgY— West Virginia Football (@WVUfootball) July 1, 2026Clean. Crisp. Glossy. ✨ pic.twitter.com/XDraDcRPsm— West Virginia Football (@WVUfootball) July 1, 2026The Mountaineers have used a white matte helmet since the 2013 season, when they made the huge uniform change from the Pat White/Gino Smith era uniforms that featured the NASCAR-looking numbers on the jerseys to the pickaxe numbers on what was a very minimalistic look throughout the entire uniform. That set of unis was pretty forgettable, to be honest. I get wanting to try something new, especially with a new head coach at the time, Dana Holgorsen, and wanting to create a new identity, but it just didn't look like West Virginia. From 2012 to about two or three years ago, we saw a lot of schools make bold changes to their uniforms, and after experimenting with them for a little bit, we're starting to see more of them revert back to a classic look or a modernized version of it.Last year, after Rich Rodriguez made his return to WVU, they opted to return to the glossy blue helmet, better matching the uniform, which has features of that pot white era with the shoulder chips and logo on the side of the shoulder pads. This current set is a nice blend between the two greatest eras in Mountaineer football, with the double stripe on the pants, paying homage to the Don Nehlen era, the shoulder chips from Rich Rod's first stint in Morgantown, while also adding some new things, such as the number font and the team name written above the numbers on the front of the jersey.The matte finish on the helmets appears to be completely out of the rotation, aside from the coal Rush uniforms, which do have a stronger presence with that look as opposed to the gloss. Last season, West Virginia did not wear a gold helmet once. Well, not entirely true, I suppose, They wore the true "Old Gold" for the 1965 throwback set, but not the yellow gold we had seen for the last decade plus.Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow