Dave Brandon Discusses the Winged Helmet
Dave Brandon covers the iconic status of Michigan's winged helmet in his latest blog entry at MGoBlue.com.
As a kid being recruited by several universities, I remember seeing the maize wings and thinking it was the neatest football helmet in the world. I am not saying the helmet was the reason I came to Michigan, but I would say it piqued my interest in our school at a very young age. In fact, many of our football players and others alike believe the "winged helmet" plays an important role in our recruiting efforts.
Many college football programs would love to figure out a way to knock us out of our No. 1 ranking in the "battle of the best helmet competition." Some programs are even changing their helmet color/design during the season to create more interest and attention.
While the "helmet wars" are fun to talk about, the serious point is Michigan should never change from the winged helmet. This design is classic. It is representative of the winningest team in college football -- and when one is coming at you on the football field you know you are about to get hit harder than most other teams you will play. That is what Michigan -- and our special helmet -- is all about!
While we strive for growth and sometimes change will come with it, the classic "block M" and our winged football helmet represent our tradition and history -- simple and strong. These iconic symbols should remain for decades to come.
Feel better now? Wait, he didn't cover uniform color and design?
Ugh.
The buckeyes should put a big osu O on the top of their helmets. That way birds would know where to shit.
to drop the maize-jersey bomb.
Michigan fans are quite aware of the uniqueness of the winged helmets. The only reason for DB to tell us how iconic the helmets are is to get everyone focused on something other than the jerseys.
110% agree. This is just a "before you yell GET OFF MY LAWN!" warning. Something is up.
Brandon has little credibility with me. How he handled the coaching search left a bad taste in my mouth. Clearly he talked to Harbaugh and then he stood there and acted like an angry little child when reporters asked him if he did. He seems to be at the point where he thinks he can lie to the fanbase and get away with it.
I'm all but resigned to a maize colored jersey with an Arby's logo on it. I really should go stock up on good Michigan gear before he manages to mess it all up.
I think he has done a great job as he got a coach who has done everything right, and has led succesful campaigns for new screens for the Big house, overseeing a new emphasis on the BBall program, our first night game, etc. All things that the fan base sees as positive.
Though, I agree...we will CLEARLY have maize colored jerseys with an Arby's logo on it, right over the helmets he loves just to piss everyone off. Should be fun to watch
People are entitled to like Hoke and not necessarily like Brandon. A lot of people were ecstatic with Rich when he first came here but couldn't overlook the things Martin did before that just because they liked the end result.
Brandon really was a prick during the coaching search. The man flew around in big, gaudy Michigan planes and had the gall to tell us he was trying to be covert. And the placating stuff with Miles was just insulting, especially for a guy who said he intended to put a stop to the factions.
Or...people could say that the general public absolutely knew nothing about the coaching search, so much that we watched dominoes planes to see if we could understand anything about the search. That is pretty covert. I also don't see a problem with him interviewing miles to make sure he had his candidate in Hoke. overall, lets not act like he fucked up when most of the time, we (the fan base) absolutely knew nothing about what was going on and what indeed transpire.
And the placating stuff with Miles was just insulting, especially for a guy who said he intended to put a stop to the factions.
Are you suggesting that the fanbase is still badly factionalized? I don't think it is. I didn't like "the process" at the time, but looking back on it, I think it was pretty well-managed. Brandon threw a bone to every faction: RR's (by giving him one more chance to show what he could do, coaching a healthy team in the bowl), Harbaugh's (by pursuing him, as far as we can tell), Miles's (by at least meeting him in person) and Hoke's. In doing so, he gave Hoke more credibility with the fanbase than he would have had if he'd been hired in December. And Hoke now seems generally accepted, at least for now.
You realize he wasn't on the "big, gaudy Michigan plane" right?
...matter to people who want to bitch about "The Process". Never mind that the reports of Brandon flying into Baton Rouge on the winged helmet private jet were false. It fits the narrative that Brandon's travel during the HC search was designed to throw up a smokescreen of interest in anyone not Hoke.
There wil not be an Arby's logo on a maize colored jersey.
has changed very slightlyover the years. The wings and stripes are pretty much the same design, but the color, thickness and width and angles have all shifted slightly back and forth. You have to look carefully to see the difference. The type of helmet and helmet surface too has affected how the wings and stripes appear to the eye.
Personally I prefer the Michigan helmet design from 1977 to 1980. The wings were bigger and the helmet stripes didn't go all the way back to the neck edge of the helmet. This was a classic look because if you see Tom Harmon's helmet the stripes stopped short of the neck edge.
See Curt Greer (95) and John Anderson (86) helmets at bottom of this photo.
Also, page down for center Walt Downing's helmet (72) from 1977 shows this difference more precisely.
Now look at a 2010 Michigan helmet:
Will the next blog entry be about re-introducing helmet stickers?
*crosses fingers*
Opinions on helmet stickers aside (I grew up during the Carr years which seems to be the split) Brandon won't be the one announcing them if they do come back.
Come of age 1969-1994: Pro Stickers.
Come of age 1995-2011: Pro...choice...doesn't work but it would be a nice, lame political joke if it did.
My first several years as a fan were in the sticker era, but I was never a huge fan of them. I thought they made the design too cluttered, and I always liked photos taken at the beginning of the season, before players had earned them. I was happy when Carr dropped them. That said, I'm surprised how worked up people are about them. It's just a sticker, and the "cluttering" only takes place in the second half of the season, for guys in the starting lineup.
No not always, but you can make approximations based on demographics, and from what I've seen, that's where people are usually split. I've just noticed that people who grew up with Bo tend to like them and people who grew up with Carr tend to like the helmets plain. Of course there are going to be people who disagree, it's probably like 65-35 on either side of the coin, if not closer to 50-50.
I think our helmets are really good looking, and that stickers just sort of get in the way of it. They make it look more like a kid's lunchbox or something. (assuming anyone still has a lunchbox or puts stickers on it) If a hlemet is fundamentally unattractive, like OSU's sparkly dunebuggy silver affairs, you might as well cover it with stickers so it is less visible.
How bout we wait and see what they're going to do, then react accordingly?
Why do that when you can react hysterically based purely on conjecture....
It's one game, one jersey, one time. It's not the end of the world.
Basketball and hockey have been mixing and matching maize, blue, and white for 35 years. Football wore white pants on the road in the mid-70s.
As long as they don't let things spin out of control, as Oregon has done, I have no issues with it.
Chris brown came just for the hockey helmet. I would love to own one that I respectfully earned... Unfortunately that's not going to happen so I'll just stickk to my mini version
Chris brown came just for the hockey helmet. I would love to own one that I respectfully earned... Unfortunately that's not going to happen so I'll just stickk to my mini version