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Football Archaeology's avatar

I have not seen complaints about the white balls per se, but there were many complaints from quarterbacks about the painted stripes since that is where they positioned their thumbs. Footballs now have stripes only on the top two panels to avoid that problem. For a while, the NFL had right-handed and left-handed balls with stripes painted on three of the four panels. I'll prep a Tidbit about it.

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Football Archaeology's avatar

I was thinking it was you, but figured you would have called it a maize ball rather than a yellow ball. Congrats on the championship BTW.

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Vasav Swaminathan's avatar

Haha I should have. And thank you! What a season, what a run.

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Vasav Swaminathan's avatar

I was the guy who asked the question, and thanks what a great answer this was!

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Carter Claiborne's avatar

Have you come across any complaints that the white balls were hard to catch or were slippery? I was looking into NC State's first night game (9/20/1930 vs High Point -- the second night game in the state of NC) and found in post-game reports that "The new white football was hard to handle," though it's worth noting that the game was also played in a drizzle.

https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/technician-v11n2-1930-09-26#?c=&m=&cv=1&xywh=9203%2C3234%2C1893%2C1038

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