Why Memphis switched from whiteout to blueout for UCF

Memphis Highland Hundred booster president Tim Ingram hadn't planned to wear white for Saturday's football game against UCF and neither were his members.

The school announced Monday night on Twitter that the whiteout was now a blueout. Ingram was caught off guard when he heard about the change but said he and the boosters were ready to embrace the color most Memphis fans wear to games anyway.

"We just go with what we want to wear but when something comes out and says, 'Hey we're going to do blue,' we go exactly with what the university wants to do or whoever the sponsor is," Ingram said.

The whiteout was announced in June as part of the university's promotion schedule. It was something Memphis did two years ago when the Tigers hosted Temple on a Thursday night game on ESPN.

Fans were encouraged to wear white and Memphis had planned to wear allwhite uniforms. The problem is NCAA rules mandate home schools wear dark uniforms and road teams wear white unless both teams agree to it in writing.

A University of Memphis source said that despite the AAC approving the idea, UCF wouldn’t agree to wear dark jerseys on the road.

UCF did not return emails seeking comment.

Memphis will still wear white in its uniform at home for the first time this season. On Friday, the football team's Twitter account sent out a video with the team wearing white pants with its traditional home blue jersey.