The College Football Centennial Logo

There seems to be a general consensus among historians who study the sport of American football to recognize a game played November 6, 1869 between teams from Princeton and Rutgers as the "first college football game". One hundred years later, during the fall of 1969, the football teams at Princeton, Rutgers, and many other colleges commemorated this centennial by wearing on their helmets a special decal depicting the numerals "100" inside a football-shape. Some teams apparently used the "100" decals for only a single game, while others wore them throughout the season; usually these decals were placed prominently on the sides of the helmets, in place of the respective teams' usual helmet decals.

These "100" decals have posed a particular challenge to the completion of historical helmet images at this web site, because very few good photographs of them have been found (particularly color photographs), and because there were significant differences between the versions used by the various teams. Note the substantial differences in shape (particularly of the numerals "100") between the versions used by Rutgers and Northern Illinois:

It should be noted, however, that nearly all teams used the 'Northern Illinois' version of the logo. Additionally, the decals were produced in at least a few different colors, which often did not coincide with the official colors of the team wearing them. Nebraska, for example, used a blue football-shape, as did Bowling Green, Idaho, Washington State, and Marshall; Rutgers used a gold or yellow football-shape. Having studied this matter for a number of years I have reached the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of teams which used these decals used one having a blue football-shape, with white numbers outlined in red; I will refer to this version as the "standard blue" version. Due to the extreme scarcity of other versions I intend to add color photographs to this page of any other version besides "standard blue"; below are what I've located thus far:

Alabama

Missouri

Oregon State

Texas

USC

Vanderbilt

Washington

I would appreciate additional color photographs of any other instance aside from the standard blue one. The other teams known to have used non-blue logos are Rutgers, UCLA, and possibly Alabama (on their white helmets). I had previously added helmet images to this website depicting red "100" football-shapes for both New Mexico State and Southwest Missouri State, but these were done in the very early days of the website (c.2000) and I might have at that time relied upon descriptions of the color provided by a contributor to the website - I cannot say that I remember seeing color photographs of either the NMSU or SWMSU 1969 helmets. The 1970 NMSU and SWMSU yearbooks are available online but neither contains any color photographs of 1969 helmets for those teams. Hence I have retracted those two until additional information becomes available.

While most teams wore these decals on the sides of their helmets, several teams wore them at the back of the helmet:

At least four teams (Nebraska, Yale, Shepherd, and Doane) wore the "100" decal at the front of the helmet:

Below are some more of the clearest photographs I have received showing the detail within the "100" decals:

Following is a table listing the colleges known to have used the "100" logo during at least one game in 1969 - there were probably many others, and I would appreciate additional reports (including for small colleges).

Does anyone know of an existing, game-worn helmet from the year 1969 featuring one of these original decals? (One is reported to be at Princeton, see note in table above, and another in the possession of a former Syracuse player, see note in Syracuse section).

Might we expect to see some "150" decals during the fall of 2019? (Answer: apparently only three teams used such a decal - Virginia and Duke for one game each, against each other, and Texas, in a game played against Kansas. Many teams wore small "150" logos on their uniforms or on the back of their helmets, but only the aforementioned three are known to have used large side-of-the-helmet decals.)

People often request the artwork for this decal; below is the best copy I have at the present time.