More jersey talk
I spoke to the Pacific-10 office today regarding the jersey situation for the UCLA vs. USC football game, and was told the decision does not lie with Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen (as UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel suggested).
Instead, the decision to allow both teams to wear home jerseys for a game is an NCAA rule.
And a reader was kind enough to email this to me, so I shall share it with you:
http://www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2007/2007_football_rules.pdf
Rule 1-4 Article 3 on page FR-30 (or thereabouts) says the visiting team needs to wear white unless there is a prior agreement to do otherwise, in which case, the home team apparently wears white.
Brian, you have a busted link. The link points to your website instead of point to the NCAA website.
Second, there's no apparently about the requirement that the home team must wear white if the teams reach an agreement prior to the game. The rules squarely state that the home team must wear white. "ARTICLE 3. a. Players of opposing teams shall wear jerseys of contrasting colors, and the visiting team shall wear white jerseys. White jerseys may be worn by the home team when the teams have agreed before the season. Players of a team shall wear jerseys of the same color and design."
Why don't they ask the NCAA rules committee change the rule or allow the enforcement of the penalties to be waived by the offended team like most penalties during the game? Frankly, in basketball you have the home teams who are supposed to wear white wearing just about every color under the sun from white to black to yellow to some soft shaded green. Seems to me that football could ease up on the white rule -- especially where the two teams colors are contrasting.
Try this link to the rule's manual. It's the same link without the PDF at the end. Then find page FR-30.
http://www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2007/2007_football_rules
OK. I read the rules, too. I agrees with what is said about the contrasting color uniforms but there does not appear to be an explicit penalty for violating the rule. If you read the following articles in the rulebook, they discuss mandatory and illegal equipment. There is even a section discussing the penalty for not wearing mandatory and wearing illegal equipment. However, neither the mandatory or illegal equipment articles discuss contrasting uniforms. So I think the NCAA rulebook is incomplete and there is not an explicit penalty for not wearing contrasting uniforms. At this point, is everyone as confused as I am. Someone (like a lawyer) please read the rulebook and let me know how you interpret the rule.
Uniforms that are not contrasting are illegal equipment. And the penalty for wearing illegal equipment is:
"Note: No player wearing illegal equipment shall be permitted to play. If
illegal equipment is discovered by an official, the team shall be charged a
team timeout. VIOLATION—Rules 3-3-6 and 3-4-2-b-2 [S23, S3 or S21]."
Calling not having contrasting uniforms illegal is a pretty loose intrepretation of the rules. Contrasting color uniforms is not mentioned once in the illegal equipment section. Since both contrasting color uniforms and illegal equipment have their own article, I think there are separate subjects.