UCF football releases Space Game uniforms ahead of Thursday night showdown with Temple

Central Florida unveiled its highly anticipated "Mission VI" uniforms Tuesday night, boldly going where no college football team's style has gone before — the "vast void of deep space."

That's the inspiration for the color and the "Into the Darkness" theme. Canaveral blue numbers, which show the transit method for detecting an exoplanet, and the words "SPACEU" contrast the black jerseys. The Knights (4-1) — informally known as the Citronauts this week — will wear these threads Thursday against Temple (2-3).

Head coach Gus Malzahn said he got a sneak peek of the uniforms over the weekend. Quarterback John Rhys Plumlee and defensive linemen Anthony Montalvo only caught photographed glimpses of the jersey prior to Tuesday night's reveal via social media.

"They look good to me," Malzahn said. "I'm kind of boring, and all that. So if I like it, it's probably pretty cool."

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UCF uniform pants to honor Spitzer Space Telescope

Rather than the Citronaut logo donning the uniform's pants, it is instead replaced by a mission patch including the Spitzer Space Telescope — used in 2012 to identify exoplanets UCF 1.01 and 1.02 — and six Polaris stars, one for each game to date.

UCF's newest helmet is painted anodized black, the darkest shade in program history. Patches will comprise the stripe, one for each "mission" (Space Game) a player has participated in, while the stacked UCF logo is colored in gradient style — shifting from black in the top left corner to Canaveral blue in the bottom right.

UCF began its Space Game tradition in 2017, recognizing its Florida Technological University roots. The school was founded in 1963 with the mission of providing personnel to support the growing U.S. space program at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

In fact, the 50-yard line of FBC Mortgage Stadium lines up on the exact latitude as NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A. That’s the launch pad that sent humans to the moon and launched the majority of space shuttle missions.

UCF stakes its claim as the top university in the country for placing graduates in aerospace industry jobs. As the academic scope expanded beyond its original focus on engineering and technology, the school was renamed to the University of Central Florida in 1978.

The Knights — or Citronauts, as they're known during Space Games — are 5-0 all-time on such occasions. UCF beat Temple in a 52-40 shootout during the 2018 event en route to a second consecutive undefeated regular season.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF Knights football unveils Space Game uniforms ahead of Temple game