Last night, during their 70-0 woodshedding to Arkansas, the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions were penalized fifteen yards (before kickoff!) for wearing black uniforms against the Razorbacks.
And no, the penalty was not due to awful uniforms, but rather an NCAA rule requiring unforms with “sufficient contrast.” As the Golden Lions were the road team, the NCAA stipulates that the away team must either wear white or jerseys of contrasting colors with the home team unless both teams agreed in writing prior to the game on which color each will wear.
Now, I don’t know about you, but these two uniforms seem to have sufficient contrast:
Nevertheless, rules are rules as they say. And A-PB was deemed to be in violation of Article 5, under the section titled “Jersey Design, Color and Numerals.” Specifically, if we scroll down, the following rule applies:
b. Color.
1. Players of opposing teams shall wear jerseys of contrasting colors. Players on the same team shall wear jerseys of the same color and design.
2. The visiting team shall wear white jerseys; however, the home team may wear white jerseys if the teams have agreed in writing before the season.
3. If the home team wears colored jerseys, the visiting team may also wear colored jerseys, if and only if the following two conditions have been satisfied
a. The home team has agreed in writing prior to the game; and
b. The conference of the home team certifies that the jersey of the visiting team is of a contrasting color.4. If on the kickoff at the start of each half, if either team wears a colored jersey in violation of the conditions specified in paragraph 3, it is a foul for unsportsmanlike conduct.
PENALTY—Administer as a dead-ball foul. 15 yards at the succeeding spot following the kickoff. If the kickoff is returned for a touchdown, the penalty is assessed either on the try or on the succeeding kickoff, at the option of the offended team. [S27] In addition, Officials shall charge a team timeout at the start of each quarter the illegal jerseys are worn, or a foul for delay of the game if all timeouts have been used.
This is not the first time this rule has come into play in college football, and it certainly won’t be the last. In fact, the rule comes into play for some teams almost every week. LSU, for example, almost always wears white at home, forcing their opponents to wear their dark (home) jerseys. LSU always makes sure to get the approval of their opponents to wear white at home prior to the game.
But Arkansas, as the home team, wore color jerseys. So under Paragraph 3, the rule states visitors “may” also wear colored jerseys, subject to two conditions: a) The home team has agreed in writing prior to the game; and, b) The conference of the home team certifies that the jersey of the visiting team is of a contrasting color.
Apparently Arkansas-Pine Bluff didn’t read the memo and must not have informed Arkansas ahead of time of their intent to wear their black uniforms. As a result, the team was penalized 15 yards (technically for “unsportsmanlike conduct”). At the start of the second half, the team again received the 15 yard penalty.
But Arkansas was having none of this. Even if they weren’t informed ahead of time (or agreed to A-PB wearing black unis), they declined both of the 15 yard penalties, and the game proceeded as if no violations had occurred. And it wasn’t as if they’d need the yardage — the Razorbacks scored 10 touchdowns to win 70-0.
I’m not always in favor of color vs. color games, but I take no issue with the uniforms worn in last night’s game. Although a different opponent, we have seen this color vs. color matchup before when Arkansas plays Missouri.
No matter which school is the home team, Arkansas goes red/red/white, while Mizzou has gone mono-black, black over white, and gold over black.
And of course, we see color vs. color when USC/UCLA meet, and other schools will periodically both wear their dark uniforms for some games, including neutral sites and Bowls.
I understand and appreciate the rule — while it’s a vestige of earlier times when black and white (or non-high def) TVs sometimes made color vs. color games difficult to discern on TV. But maybe it’s time for the NCAA alters the rule slightly to allow for verbal acceptance of an opponent’s uniform prior to the game starting, rather than issuing the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
NCAA has nothing better to do?
They’re trying to maintain a tiny semblance of relevance in college football. This is basically them saying ‘remember us’.
The penalty should have been for the number font.
I cannot un-see the Goodwill logo in that ‘9’.
link
Hahaha!
Good on Arkansas for declining the penalties.
I agree, that was a cool move
15 yard penalty for being a cliche
Technically the game was in Little Rock so it really wasn’t anyone’s “home” game!
It was a good looking game. However, I understand the need for the rule and getting permission the legitimate way should not have been hard for UAPB.
Agreed.
Unfortunately, a verbal agreement would go South just as soon as the first coach says “Hell, I never agreed to that” so I get the written agreement part.
I’m glad the powers that be in football have finally had enough of this garbage and are now penalizing teams for wearing monoblack uni . . . wait, what? That’s not why? Damn!
Purely a hypothesis, but I’m curious if A-PB intentionally neglected to get approval knowing the game would get more coverage because of the penalties.
Let’s be honest, if it wasn’t for the penalties, this game would be a “color on color game” Ticker Item. Now it was the Lede. In a game where they knew they’d get destroyed anyway, sacrificing 30 yards for that much exposure seems like a small cost for a small directional school that many people may have never heard of.
Simple solution.
In college football, the home team always wears color, unless it has a tradition like LSU.
No more color on color.
Problem solved.
Simple solution: remove all uniform restrictions.
Insufficient contrast, more like I inefficiently care — make the refs work a bit.
Want the front and back to be different colors — go for it.
Offense in one color, defense in another — bring it.
Lets go wild!
Maybe *you* don’t care about how difficult that would be for officials, announcers, statisticans, and fans in the seats or watching on TV, but a lot of people do care.
Nothing wrong with rational restrictions. They’re there for a reason. Unfortunately the one about sufficiently contrasting numbers isn’t enforced enough sometimes.
Of course nothing is wrong with reasonable restrictions, but we have restrictions based on 70 year old technology. Why not open it up and see what would be reasonable while leveraging current technology?
I’d be willing to bet it’s a lot closer than what we have now. But unfortunately I’ll probably never get to see an all black with only crimson outlined numbers and logos vs all back with maroon outlined numbers and logos game with the players being tracked by computer models and sensors
The fans in the stands won’t have this technology.
And the only technology needed is one that’s millions of years old: eyesight.
If you can’t clearly distinguish two teams and their numbers with the naked eye, you have a highly unreasonable design failure, and a game that’s going to be unwatchable for 99.9999% of humanity.
But I already use technology to augment my eyesight with glasses uwu ☞☜
Also there is everything from AR to VR to not even having fans there in person like the NBA bubble because most of us aren’t anyway — so let’s see what’s possible and maybe we’ll get a whole bunch of cool new matchups ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎
So let’s get rid of fans in the stands to satisfy your selfish desires?
I’m done here. You’re just trolling at this point.
Being more open to new things doesn’t make me a troll. It’s actually pretty awesome, why don’t you read what I wrote again◝(๑꒪່౪̮꒪່๑)◜
I have a very credible source that APB did not have all their equipment, because the school hadn’t bought it. I’m guessing the white jerseys weren’t available for this reason.
Maybe they were waiting for them to come on sale on Fanatics.
Small note: Arkansas is red/red/red in that third example pic, not red/red/white (where Mizzou is gold over black).
I guess APB hasn’t gotten the memo that the side stripe into the pants thing is pretty outdated.
I see that rule says the team should also be charged “…a team timeout at the start of each quarter the illegal jerseys are worn, or a foul for delay of the game if all timeouts have been used.”
Did that not happen? Anyone know why? Maybe the refs thought it would be a little too harsh considering the score.
I believe since Arkansas waived the unsportsmanlike penalties at the beginning of each half, that negates any additional penalties from being assessed.
To me, there’s a simple solution to all this – all games must be “Dark vs Light”.
A “Dark” uniform is any jersey in which the numbers are lighter than the jersey, and of course “Light” includes numbers darker than the jersey.
Problem solved, except for Oregon.
This game then, would be a penalty on the Visitors.
And as soon as I hit “Post Comment”, I realized you’d have all kinds of nightmares: two yellow-jerseyed teams, one with white numbers and one with black, greens and reds are dark? light? And of course, the Portland Storm couldn’t play in any game.
When Pete Carroll and Rick Neuheisel decided to bring back the tradition of both USC and UCLA wearing their colored home jerseys, the NCAA penalized the road team UCLA. Carroll then took a penalty to even it out. After that the idiots with the NCAA modified the rules. Not sure when they came out with this rule, since USC & UCLA had done it for years until UCLA moved to the Rose Bowl in 1982.
“Paragrah”
Fixed. Thanks.
I am glad this is actually WRITTEN DOWN somewhere…
“Players on the same team shall wear jerseys of the same color and design”.
I can just see Nike or UA going to town with multi-colored unis.
Waiting for the day that a shirt or name sponsor will decide which color to wear in accordance with its logo, for every team in every team sport. Traditional team colors will be a thing of the past. It might happen sooner than later. It will be the moment for me to drop out as a fan.