Only a few steps from the Rutgers football practice fields is a nondescript side door to the Hale Center. It leads to a workroom on the complex's ground-level, cluttered with all of the superficialities that identify the program. Large enough to fit four aisles of helmets and uniforms and pads, the room is also small enough that it becomes difficult to turn around without running into an AAC patch waiting to be sewn onto a uniform.

This is where Mike Kuzniak and his two-man crew come to work every day during the football season and nearly every day away from it. It is the dressing room for the Rutgers football program, where the man who helped design its uniforms works, and where they are stored, cleaned and cared for.

Over the past two seasons, Rutgers has come to be identified by its cutting-edge uniforms — a unique blend of chrome, metallic, scarlet, black and white that all depends on the day you’re seeing them. Kuzniak is the program’s curator — officially, he’s the director of player services — and helps produce one of the most colorful and original uniforms in college football. (A decision on this week’s combinations has not been announced.)

In a sport where every part of a program has an importance and can have a marginal advantage, uniforms are one of the newer frontiers in attracting attention and recruits.

Over the past three-plus years, Rutgers has worked to separate itself from the rest.

"Everything in your program matters, from your facilities to your uniforms to your game-day experience to the people," Scarlet Knights coach Kyle Flood said. "Ultimately the people in your program are the most important piece, but everything matters. To make sure that our uniforms look like the class of college football, there’s no doubt that matters."

BEHIND THE DESIGN



Look closely and you can see the details in the designs. The red plume running atop the helmet. The scratch marks on the shoulders of the uniform. The black chip marks dotting the chrome helmet. The scarlet line running down the pant leg.

There is a meaning to it all.

When Greg Schiano, then the football coach, decided after the 2010 season that it was time for Rutgers to modernize and wear new uniforms, Kuzniak immediately had the idea. The uniforms would match the school’s nickname. When Rutgers took the field, they would look like 21st-century knights.

The uniforms would not be cartoonish, he told himself. They would not be silly. When the team ran out of the tunnel before games, they would channel that look.

"The term swag is out there," Kuzniak said. "Oregon, I guess, you can say they set the bar coming out with all these different uniforms and helmets, and then all these other schools followed. We just thought it was time to do something here at Rutgers."

That set off a multi-year process. Quickly, Kuzniak went to work trying to design them, working with Todd Grenadier, Schiano’s former chief of staff. He scoured the internet for inspiration. He looked at other uniforms. He drew up so many jersey and helmet prototypes and color combinations that he cannot count them all. They filled up an entire binder.

After six months, Rutgers went to Nike, their uniform partner, with ideas. They showed the company's designers what they wanted, their thoughts, and pictures of other schools' jerseys.

It took more than a year to come up with the exact look. When Schiano left after the 2011 season, the new uniforms still had not debuted. When Flood took over, he added his own imprint and tweak. Finally, the uniforms went public in the spring of 2012.

In all, there are four helmets (in black, white, scarlet, and chrome) and three uniforms (white, black, and red). And the design is purely Rutgers — so intricate that it is difficult to gain a full appreciation without seeing them up close.

Flood changed the font of "Rutgers" on the front of the jersey and added that "FAMILY," an acronym that has become a pillar of the program, should be stitched into the inside collar on the back of the jersey.

The scratches on the shoulder are akin to a chinking of a knight’s armor in battle. The red line running down the pants is a sword, representing a bloodline. The silver material of the numbers on the white jerseys shines differently depending on the time of the day.

When the chrome helmet chips, it reveals a black shell underneath, a knight showing off his battle marks. And each helmet is adorned with a "Knights" sticker on the back and "Believe" on the front, in red for away games and chrome for home games.

"No one else can wear that helmet," Kuzniak said. "It doesn’t match anybody else’s story in college football. That’s us. To me it’s unique."

RECRUITING EDGE

Part of the reason Schiano decided to update the uniforms was to woo recruits. As Flood said, everything matters in that hardscrabble field.

Kuzniak prods players on the team for intel. When he orders clothing and equipment from Nike, he leans on them for advice.

Recruits frequently stop in the workroom on visits and take photos alongside the three mannequins wearing each uniform. Kuzniak asks each recruit to be honest with him if they don't like the uniform. So far not one has told him they don't.

How much uniforms actually mean for recruits is indeterminable. Gary Nova says they have a "five percent influence" -- more so as a tiebreaker -- but it's all largely guesswork.

"We're trying to just evolve and continue to go with everybody else," Kuzniak said. "Have our look but continue, whether it’s the helmet or the gloves or cleats or something like that, continue to do new things here."

ALL ABOUT SERVICE

For Kuzniak, there is a special meaning to the school’s American flag helmet, a version of which they wore for the first time against Army on Veteran's Day weekend during the 2011 season. After graduating from Sayreville High School, he enlisted in the Marines and spent more than five years in the armed forces.

Upon his return, he tried several clerical jobs but did not find what he wanted. Instead, he enrolled at Rutgers and in 2004 signed up to be a student manager.

Kuzniak had every intention of leaving the school behind when he graduated. He was going to become a special education teacher, focusing his studies there, and graduating with a Master's degree. After graduation, Schiano asked him to become the program's equipment manager, noticing his work as a student manager.

He began less than a month before the 2008 season and has not left. Though he received the job because another hire fell through, after his first year, Schiano told him he had no regrets. The coach was happy with the selection he had made.

Now, he is the behind-the-scenes engine that helps gird the team. As do Ben Beiting and Mike Shapley, who work with him as equipment managers.

The routine is tiring.

After each game they strip the helmets of their chinstraps, facemask and stickers. It takes three days and 8-10 hours each to do so, interspersed with laundry and their practice duties. Occasionally, when faced with intransigent screws, it requires a hacksaw and ends with bloodied hands. Helmets must be ready by the next Thursday before a Saturday game so they can be worn in practice.

He oversees 800 helmets in total, at least, and two jerseys per player.

Meticulous and detail-oriented, he nearly lives in the Hale Center during the season, working seven days a week.

Yet, in an otherwise orderly space, there is one area that is slightly ajar.

In the back corner of the workroom is a shelf brimming with helmets, one piled atop another. It is tradition for opposing equipment managers to exchange helmets after games, and Kuzniak’s shelf is a war chest.

And there is one helmet that those managers go after every time. They all want the chrome helmet, he says, that has come to be aligned with Rutgers. Kuzniak has made a habit of telling them no.