College football, as a whole, doesn't decide on when to do anything. The institutions themselves decide whether or not to place names on the back of jerseys, and to this day, some teams have names and some do not.
Penn State is currently the only team without names on their jerseys
1 drake university of Iowa
zero
Notre dame Penn state Colorado army USC University of Central Florida (UCF) USC
Notre dame Penn state Colorado army USC University of Central Florida (UCF) USC
When the National Football League and the American Football League merged in 1970, all players began wearing their names on their uniform jerseys. Before the merger, only the AFL teams wore jerseys with names.
One that I can think off the top of my is the AFL (Australian Football League)
There are approximately 119 college football teams.
1970
It tends to be a matter of home team etiquette overcoming blatant commercial advertising of a player's name. Teams like the Red Sox and Dodgers and Yankees (the Red Sox are the only one I can name for sure) don't put the names of the players on the home jerseys, probably because the hometown faithful are expected to know who they are. On the road jerseys, however, their names are listed, as is the case with any teams that have blank home jerseys that I know of. **** Correction. The Yankees do not have their names on their home jerseys OR their away jerseys.
Currently, 3 teams do not display their players names on the back of their home jerseys. They are the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants. The Yankees also do not display their names on their road jerseys.