Does anyone ever wonder...

Submitted by bdubya on
I was looking at some countdown lists of the best helmets in college football, and as usual, Michigan was near the top of most lists.  It got me wondering though, what would our helmets look like if Fritz never brought the design over from Princeton?  Do you guys think we would just have the M on the helmets, or would it be something else?
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formerlyanonymous

July 10th, 2008 at 10:57 AM ^

It would have been just a Blue helmet with perhaps a single stripe of maize over the top. I imagine it would have been much like OSU's or PSU's in terms of not much flair. The question is would we have experimented with other things on it such as a block M or some crappy looking wolverine picture.

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hat

July 10th, 2008 at 11:51 AM ^

I imagine they'd be like Missouri's, but in our colors. That wouldn't be awful, but obviously nowhere near as unique as our current ones.

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Blake

July 10th, 2008 at 3:35 PM ^

btw...Princeton's football helmets with the orange wings may be cooler than Michigan's, especially with the historical significance of Crisler bringing the style to Michigan from there: http://blogs.princeton.edu/paw/WEB1031.JPG

Also, as a follow-up to the green and white winged helmets, Sparty also used to have a winged helmet design: http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/football/helmet/harmmsl.jpg

...and of course, the full historical article for those interested: http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/football/helmet/mhelmet.htm

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hat

July 10th, 2008 at 9:20 PM ^

Yeah, lots of teams used to have winged helmets, because that was the stitching pattern on the old leather ones.  But when helmets switched to plastic, everyone dropped the practice of having colored wings - except Michigan. Keeping the winged design (plus the stripes) on a non-leather helmet is our trademark. 

As for Princeton, they dropped Crisler's helmet design as soon as he left, and had boring helmets for the next 60+ years, before finally going back to his design recently.  So no, I don't think theirs is cooler than ours.  They failed to appreciate a good design when they had one, and now they will forever be known as Michigan wannabes. 

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