Saturday will be a busy day for the Western Kentucky football team.

Two weeks into fall camp, the Hilltoppers will hold their first live-tackling scrimmage at Houchens-Smith Stadium since the spring game in April.

That scrimmage takes place a few hours before the annual Football Fan Fest at E.A. Diddle Arena at 2 p.m.

Head coach Mike Sanford said Wednesday he felt his team already has its identity down pat three weeks before the season opener against Eastern Kentucky on Sept. 2.

Saturday will be a chance to see how the Hilltoppers perform in certain game-management situations. Saturday’s practice and all other fall camp sessions are closed to the public.

“We’re going to get after it on Saturday,” Sanford said. “I want to see a continued trend of our game operations and sideline management signals and getting guys lined up. I feel good about where we’re at from a tackling standpoint. I love to play tackle football. We’re doing as much as we can, but we’re also going to be smart.”

Later in the day at Fan Fest, the team will unveil the new Nike uniforms. The university announced in April that Nike would take over as the official apparel and shoe provider for each of WKU’s 16 athletic teams beginning with the 2017-18 season.

The announcement came shortly after WKU announced it mutually discontinued its exclusive on-field sponsorship agreement with Russell Athletic, though the Bowling Green-based company will continue to partner with WKU as an apparel licensee.

WKU changing uniforms has become a trend every few years. The team adopted the trendy chrome helmets in 2013 and undertook a complete overhaul in uniform style from a plain red and white traditional look.

The team made minor adjustments again last year by adding a houndstooth pattern to honor legendary coach Jimmy Feix, which he wore on his famous fedora. The uniforms also contained the university seal inside the numbers on each jersey, and the landmark Colonnades on campus were embedded across the chest plate.

Sanford said WKU’s new look will honor “who we are at Western with our colors, the chrome helmet” the red towel and Nike’s signature “big ol’ beautiful swoosh.”{blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”}{p lang=”en” xml:lang=”en” dir=”ltr”}Saturday’s team meeting in 3 emojis: 👀😱🔥 Full reveal at Fan Fest! #GoTops pic.twitter.com/kYpG9KlehT– WKU Football (@WKUFootball) August 7, 2017{/blockquote} {script charset=”utf-8” type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”}{/script} {blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”}{p lang=”und” xml:lang=”und” dir=”ltr”}👀✔️ pic.twitter.com/diKZoJHlbh– Coach Mike Sanford (@CoachSanfordWKU) August 8, 2017{/blockquote} {script charset=”utf-8” type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”}{/script}“I love the uniforms,” Sanford said. “I think they’re such a clean look. That chrome helmet, it makes that. If you have a beautiful red jersey with a swoosh on it or a white jersey with white pants, you’re going to have a really good-looking jersey. I think what we did will highlight our brand, which is our towel. Beyond that is that swoosh. That’s the theme to this jersey.”

Last season, the team used six different combinations between red, white and black jerseys and pants.

The team got an early look at the new uniforms last Sunday night.

“The uniforms, I love,” redshirt sophomore receiver Quin Jernighan said. “I love the red, black, all white. The uniforms they came in with are cool.”{&end}