Interlocking M-S-U > M-State for Football Helmets
While I was watching the 1992 MSU vs. Alabama game in my post last week, I couldn’t help but notice how good those old helmets looked. Every time I’ve looked at a picture of the current helmets since, I just don’t like them as much as those interlocking MSU ones.
Mississippi State has never been very consistent when it comes to headgear design…we’ve had at least 10 different ones. From a white helmet with a maroon stripe to maroon helmets with white logos. We’ve had a bulldog on the helmet, numbers, MS, MSU, M-State and even a M with a goofy arrow (1969-73) pictured to the right. After that disaster, State went with the ‘MS’ logo pictured below. The maroon helmet is a much better choice than the white, which was the most common prominent color prior to these.
One of the worst offenders of all MSU helmets has to be the Croom era, white M-State…
The new logo is better for a helmet then the scrunched ribbon pictured above. And going back to maroon was the right decision.
I wasn’t at first, but now I think I am a fan of the matte helmets we wore for several games in 2011…
While I think our current helmets are A LOT better than the Croom-era, I still don’t think the M-State looks as good as the interlocking MSU. I’m sure that I’m hitting my head against the wall because Stricklin & Co. don’t want to call Mississippi State MSU anymore. They want to emphasize that we are from Mississippi and representing Mississippi and they want to say the word Mississippi. But, there just isn’t enough room to say that on a helmet – so we use M-State. I’ve heard plenty of people calling us M-State, and it’s because of that logo. I’d rather be called MSU. So let’s use the M-S-U!
There were three different interlocking MSU logos:
1. This was used from 1979-1985. It’s a little more spread out than the other MSU logos, but it’s alright.
2. This logo was used from 1986-1995. This is my favorite MSU logo of all, and I would go back to it in a heartbeat. I am not 100% that Nike owns this one.
3. The 1996-2003 helmet that brings back all the fond memories. This logo I know is owned by Nike so we could never use it again…unless we signed back up with them.
ChillBilly came up with a design that I thought looked pretty good – it encompasses some of #2 and #3…
If the administration is deadest against putting MSU on a helmet, I would even suggest some thing like this (another one of ChillBilly’s designs)..
But…maybe it’s silly to have the bulldog on a helmet. I do really like the grey and white stripe down the middle that ChillBilly came up with. If we are M-State and nothing else, I like this design a lot…