Arkansas declines absurd penalties levied against opponents' uniform colors

The game between the Arkansas Razorbacks and Arkansas-Pine Bluff had not even kicked off yet before the Golden Lions were assessed a penalty.

What for? Not wearing contrasting uniforms as the away team.

According to NCAA rules , the away team must either wear white or jerseys of contrasting colors with the home team unless both teams agreed in writing prior to the game on which color each will wear.

Apparently the latter didn't happen and Arkansas-Pine Bluff wore black uniforms against Arkansas' trademark cardinal red. As a result, the Golden Lions were assessed a 15-yard penalty at the start of each half — which the Razorbacks declined in typical southern hospitality.

The penalty decision was curious to begin with as to the naked eye of an average fan, the red and black jerseys seemingly contrasted and could be easily distinguished on the field. But the rule may have not been designed just for average fans.

According to the Penn State Accessibility Center , red and black are not easily distinguishable for color blind people as they lack "the capability to detect the lower color wave frequencies associated" with those colors.

This may remind some people of the NFL's "color rush" debacle in 2015 where the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills wore green and red uniforms respectively.

That on-field combination evinced a myriad of complaints online from color blind fans who couldn't tell the two teams apart.

Suffice to say, despite all that, Arkansas was certainly not in need of the extra 30 penalty yards as they went into halftime up 49-0 over Pine Bluff.