Before visiting teams consistently wore white or light-colored jerseys, passers sometimes had difficulty differentiating their eligible receivers from the defensive players. One means of highlighting them was to paint the receivers’ helmets differently than other players. The image shows Oregon painted the back of their eligible receivers’ helmets so they would stand out to their passers as they ran downfield.
For more on how the forward pass changed the color of helmets, check out the article below.
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