text: Beginning in 1998, TCU began once again incorporating black into the uniforms. The practice was started by Coach Franchione, who introduced a new helmet with black facemask, and purple jerseys with black pants. In 2012, the school debuted helmets which featured a black stripe in addition to the black facemask, reflecting the helmets worn during the TCU championship years of the 1930s. Several TCU helmets designs also feature a small red "blood stripe" in the middle of the central black stripe, a reference to how horned frogs can squirt blood from their eyes/forehead onto potential predators.
  Helmets
  TCU was the last school in college football to wear leather helmets, switching to hard plastic helmets in 1946. Prior to 1946, the TCU football team wore either black helmets with a purple stripe or purple helmets with a black stripe. Since the introduction of plastic, the TCU helmet has gone through a number of design changes.
  In the 1950s, TCU wore a purple helmet with a white stripe down the middle. In 1954, a gray facemask was introduced, and in 1958, white numbers were added to the sides of the helmet.
  In 1965, a new helmet was introduced featuring a purple shell and a white stylized Horned Frog on the side. A different, fiercer Horned Frog design was used for the 1966 helmets, featuring just the frog's head. In 1967, the school used a pattern similar to that of Texas A&M.