The Great Helmet Debate

The Lions current headgear is among our best

This is one of those discussions that are fun, but could also end in fisticuffs... still I'd like to discuss the Ivy League football helmet decals and designs over the years and single out my favorites, and identify the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Before we start, everyone MUST check out the excellent web site created by Charles Arey called The Helmet Project. This artist and avid football fan has taken it upon himself to document just about every helmet design used by almost every team in organized football. Yes, there are omissions here and there but when someone sends him clear picture of a helmet, he makes the changes ASAP.

Anyway, here's the page for the Ivy League, and as you can see, it's pretty complete for each team, (within reason).

Columbia's current helmet is certainly in the "good" category. It utilizes the school colors of light blue and white, and the block "C" decal is simple and classy. It's definitely an improvement over our last helmet, which used a logo decal that was a nice picture, but it was too intricate to be seen clearly from anywhere further than 2 yards away. I very much liked the hooked "CU" helmet in use from 1986 to 2003, but it wasn't so perfect that we didn't need a change.


Still my fave

As I've said before, the "pouncing lion" helmet of the 70's is my favorite. But the association with the Detroit Lions is something I could do without, especially since if we brought it back, people would accuse of stealing their design.

We've had just one real stinker in my opinion. The script "Columbia" with the underline flourish in use from 1980-1984 just looked tacky, and a little too much of a rip-off of UCLA's logo at the time. But this was the helmet in use during John Witkowski's record-setting years, so I still have something of a positive connection to it.

The 1985 helmet is not pictured on the site, but it was light blue, with the Columbia crest inside a white football-shaped space in the middle. I love the Columbia crest, so I liked that helmet, but the 1985 season was such a disaster than almost anything connected with it should be forgotten for safety's sake.


Cornell's shining simplicity just works for me

My choice for the best current helmet may surprise some of you, but it's Cornell. Cornell is the Big Red, and the bright red color of the helmet stands out in an unmistakable way. The big "C" is simple and classic. It's a no frills helmet that doesn't feel like a boring no-frills helmet. Getting rid of that stripe down the middle a few years ago was a good move. And the helmet they used with the word "Cornell" spelled in an arc shape was a mess.


Trick or treat!

Princeton's helmet is great too. But even though the design was originated at PU before Michigan took it, it's obvious that the popularity of that design is mostly because of Michigan's success. So it is a rip-off in a sense. I also preferred the Princeton helmet that preceded it, with just the simple orange color with the thin black stripe going down the middle. One reason I really liked it was that it really looked like a pumpkin, and since Columbia always played Princeton around Halloween time for many years, it seemed fitting. But at least Princeton got rid of the various decals with Tigers and Tiger stripes which all looked just wrong.

I like Dartmouth's winged "D" as it is unique with that "D" in the front of the helmet. The underlined "Dartmouth" helmet of the 80's and 90's was good too, but I wonder why green isn't the dominant color for the helmet instead of white.

Harvard and Yale's helmets are classic and decent... and a little boring. I was glad when Harvard's ditched the small "H" logo inside the white background from the 70's through 1994, which I thought was too understated. I wouldn't mind seeing something new from these teams, but the risk of doing something really awful outweighs the odds that someone could design something better than what they have now.


What was wrong with this one?

The team that I thought had a perfect helmet was Penn, with its two-tone "P" decal from 1981-1991. That was a great use of the school colors and initial. But the current boring "Penn" decal and the script "Penn" do nothing for me. Penn's worst helmet was the 1970-78 design that I thought was just ugly.


You must be this tall to ride Bruno

My choice for the worst current helmet is Brown. The logo with the bear hugging the word "Brown" just looks like something they put on signs at Six Flags. Meanwhile, I thought they had a great helmet design in the mid-80's with the brown base and the elegant Brown University crest as the logo.

Anyway, feel free to argue with me about any of these points in the comments section.


Stat of the Day

The analyst in me can't allow an entire post to be about helmet logos, so I thought I'd let you all chew on this:

Not allowing opposing offenses to convert on 3rd down is often a key to victory, and here's how the Ivy defenses did in 3rd down conversions allowed:

Princeton-27%

Harvard-33%

Cornell-34%

Penn-34%

Brown-38%

Columbia-38%

Dartmouth-44%

Yale-44%

I wasn't surprised to see Ivy champ Princeton at the top of this list, but the stingy 27% number was really astounding. Anyone who doubts that defense wins championships, I give you the 2006 Princeton Tigers.

I was very surprised to see Yale tied with Dartmouth for the worst defensive numbers on third down. Even if you take away the disastrous 43-17 loss to U. San Diego in the season opener, the Bulldogs would come in 7th with 40.7%.


More on Delgadillo...

I don't want anyone to think that my previous posts about Rocky Delgadillo were just the products of Harvard-bashing. I should have noted that he graduated from Columbia law school, so the shame gets spread around a bit.


Big 10 Network

Congressman John Dingell is "looking out" for cable users wondering about extra costs that may get passed on as a result of the
Big 10 Channel.

Lord knows, the Ivy League could benefit from a cable channel of its own, offering all kinds of content including sports. The profitability of stations like National Geographic and the History Channel, (and the individually popular shows on PBS), prove that the entertaining professors, (and we all had them), that roam the halls of the Ivy schools could probably provide great on-air content. I say give the Ivies a network and let the weekends belong to the sports teams. It could work.