The Wife's Outburst: Best and Worst Mountain West Conference Football Helmets

Examining the best and worst football helmets in the history of each Mountain West Conference member...

As I was browsing Facebook, I found a link to a website (http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/) which has all the current helmets of all college football teams along with what the helmets looked like dating back to pre-1960. Here is a look at the best and worst helmet for each team in the Mountain West.

UTAH


The worst helmet for Utah was in 1974. It was just a plain red helmet with a sliver/gray face mask. Ugly! There is not any identification on it. No wonder it only lasted one year.  Did they not have enough money to put a logo on it?




The best helmet for Utah was from 1986-1987.  it has a white stripe down the middle and the current Utah logo.  The font is a little different.  The "U" is skinnier and has a Western type font.  It looks really good.  It is the bright red with a white face mask.

TCU

The worst helmet for TCU was worn (according to the site) during the first eight games of the 1980 season(on the left) and then the other two(on the right) were only worn for a game against Texas Tech and Texas.  I don't see what was so special about them.  Why did they have to make three different helmets?  They all look the same to me, except one is silver/gray and the other two are purple with a white or silver/gray face mask.  The colors are just reversed.  It is the same design.

The best helmet for TCU comes between 1995 and 1997.  It is a silver/gray helmet with purple block "TCU" on the side.  You may ask what makes that different from the ugly one.  It is the font.  On the ugly one the font is weird and unappealing.  This one is simple.  It has a black outline for the letters.  I also like the black face mask.


BYU

The worst helmet for BYU would have to be during the 1999-2004 seasons.  It went with the ugly uniforms.  I never liked them.  It seemed like BYU was trying to give itself a new image when the simple white helmet with a blue "Y" on the side was the BYU image for almost 30 years.



The best BYU helmet was about 1962.  This was used before BYU had the blue "Y" helmets.  Its really cool.  The upper half is blue and the lower half is white.  I haven't seen a helmet like this before.  Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

AIR FORCE

This one is a bit different.  Air Force has been using the same helmet design since right around 1960s.  It is white with a blue lightning bolt.  Now that is what I call picking an identity and sticking with it.  Way to go Air Force!  For the past 48 years, they have only changed minor things like adding or taking away a stripe and changing the color of the face mask.


COLORADO STATE

Colorado State definitely had some bad helmets.  The worst one was worn from 1973-1981.  It is bright yellow with green ram's horns.  Yikes!  It's just....I don't know.  I can't find the words to describe its ugliness. I will just have to show you.



The best Colorado State helmet was during the 1993 and 1994 season.  It is a slight variation of the one they have been using since 1995.  The only difference is this one has a white face mask.  It looks a lot better and the players don't look like they are eating grass.  I guess that isn't necessarily a bad thing since they are the Rams.

UNLV

UNLV by far has had the most helmets for a team in the last 40 years (they beat New Mexico by 3).  The worst one was worn in 1981.  It was the last red helmet worn by the school.  There are letters written in a cursive type writing saying "UNLV" on the side of the helmet.  What football player would want to wear something with girly cursive writing on his helmet? But I guess it didn't affect them that bad because they won half their games.

The best helmet was from 1987 to about 1989.  It is silver with a big red "N" and in small white letters "Las Vegas" over the "N."  I really like it.  It has a red face mask and a red and white stripe down the middle of the helmet.  Out of all the helmets, red and silver, from the past 40 years, this one appealed to me the most.  It is unique.

NEW MEXICO

The worst helmet is the current one that has been used since 2004. I can't see the mascot.  It is too detailed.  The red outline does nothing for it.  Helmets need to be simple.  Why try to do too much with it.  It needs to be seen clearly from the stands.  The picture of a lobo cannot be seen clearly from the stands.



The best helmet is from 1972-1973.  It is red with a white circle and red "NM" in the white circle.  Now this was a simple helmet.  You can easily see the "NM" on the side.  This one is not very detailed at all.  The font of the "NM" is an easy to read font.  Overall, its just a cool helmet.

WYOMING

The worst helmet is from 1965-present.  How could a school have an ugly helmet for so long?  Why doesn't someone tell them?  I think it is because people don't want to stay around long enough.  The helmets pretty much are the same, only with a few color changes.  You do have to give them credit for sticking with the Cowboy image on their helmet.  I guess they want people to know they are the Cowboys.  The color combinations of yellow and brown are not very appealing (sorry Davis High people...); however for Wyoming it perfectly describes Wyoming.

The best helmet is the 1962-1964 plain white with a brown "W" on the side.  Why did they go away from this one?  It looks really nice and classic.  You really can't get anymore simpler than this.  They are trying to do too much with the current helmet.  Maybe if they go back to a simpler time and a simpler helmet they might play better?

SAN DIEGO STATE

The worst helmet is from 1974-1977.  It is just a plain red helmet with a black face mask.  How boring is that?  What if you were playing another team with your same color and their helmets were the same?  You wouldn't be able to tell the players apart except for the jersey.  And watching it on TV would look like a bunch of red blurs running up and down a green rectangle thing with white lines on it.  Oh, wait...that is how it used to look on the mtn. up until Saturday.

The best helmet is from 2002-2003.  The Aztec logo is really cool.  Much better than writing Aztecs on the side of the helmet.  Around the edge there is (according to the site) black airbrushing.  It looks fierce and warrior like.  I would be intimidated if I was on a team which was facing San Diego State.  The helmet for 2004-2005 looked just like this one, except the logo was outlined in white.