Back in the day when the NCAA wasn't so rule happy and quasi-repressive, competing teams were allowed to wear similar uniforms. Certain teams could wear their Saturday finest home uniforms, and their opponent could do the same. This was aesthetically pleasing and created something of a tradition between cross-town rivals USC and UCLA.Those days are gone however, and we're left with NCAA Rule I, Article 3 (a):
Players of opposint teams shall wear jerseys of contrasting colors, and the visiting team shall wear white jerseys.White jerseys per Rule I, Article 3 (b) are defined as follows:
A white jersey is one with only contrasting playing numbers, player's name, school name, NCAA Football logo, school insignia, conference insignia, mascot insignia, game insignia, memorial insignia or the American flag attached.In other words if I'm home you're wearing the road uniforms or one of us is getting docked a timeout. To put it kindly, this is lame.
I guess the reasoning was that back in the day with people still owning black and white televisions it was difficult to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Times have changed and the dinosaurs who before owned black and white TV's are now the ones who have yet to hop on HD train. With technology and the great American wealth machine doing the sport a favor, it's time to put the kibosh on this rule and restore a particular tradition within one of the game's great rivalries.
There's a famous painting of the 1967 USC/UCLA game well known to fans of both schools. In it, Trojan tailback O.J. Simpson is seen near the goal line amid a pile of football bodies. His home cardinal and gold complements the powder keg blue and gold of UCLA's players attempting to prevent a touchdown run. It's a beautiful scene and for a while was representative of the rivalry until the rule came into use some years later.
There's been talk in recent years of reviving this tradition, but neither Trojan coach Pete Carroll nor UCLA coach Karl Dorrell has been willing to part with timeouts to make it happen. This is tragic - but hopefully the NCAA can get around to either giving these teams an exemption or modifying the rule somehow to add just a little more tradition and prestige to this great game.
I've added the YouTube video of Simpson's famous 64-yard touchdown run below. The 1967 game was actually one of the better college football games ever played, matching number one UCLA against number two USC. The stars were UCLA's eventual Heisman trophy winner quarterback Gary Beban and USC's Heisman runner-up and 1968 winner tailback O.J. Simpson. USC would win 21-20 thanks to Simpson's run, catapulting them to the national championship.
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