For some viewers, football may seem like a chaotic sport with 22 players in close proximity to one another during every play.  Without jersey numbers, it would seem impossible to differentiate between players.  There was a time in the early years of American football, where jersey numbers were not used, until innovation was introduced by the University of Pittsburgh.

On this day, December 5th, in 1908, the University of Pittsburgh is the first to have uniform numbers in a football game.  The University of Pittsburgh has one of the nation’s oldest football programs, playing its first season in 1889, but the turn of the century was when the sport really became popular among colleges.  John Moorehead is credited with helping to facilitate the introduction of uniform numbers.

Today, players are recognized and, in some cases, even build an identity based on their jersey number.