Over the past couple of months, the college football websites at USA TODAY have gotten together to conduct a helmet ranking in the sport, seeing which school has the best lids in the nation.
While the concept of alternative jerseys is relatively new for some schools, at the University of Oregon, it has been a trend that was set well over a decade ago, and the Ducks have perfected the art of the uniform combination, with endless jerseys and helmets to choose from. It is one of the biggest attractions to the team, and one of the bigger tools in recruiting as well.
When asked which helmet should be used for Oregon in the top 75 ranking — a question that not many other schools had to answer — I chose to go with the green and yellow lid that the Ducks wore vs. Georgia to open the 2022 season. It’s clean, bright, and not too flashy.
Maybe that was the wrong choice? Maybe people don’t like that helmet very much? Maybe the complete and utter disrespect that the Ducks saw in the top 75 rankings is more due to jealousy, and the fact that other fan bases who voted on the rankings are a tad upset with how much of an influence Nike has in Eugene.
All of that is to say that the Ducks finished the rankings all the way down at No. 41 in the nation.
Number 41.
That means that fans believe there are 40 other helmets more impressive than the one shown above.
What are we doing here?
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the final ranking, so to try and prove a point, I went through the top-25 ranking and looked at who made the cut, all before giving my opinion on if that school’s helmet is better than Oregon’s or not.
It should be noted that the following opinions are my own, and while I may not agree with some of the helmet choices in the ranking, it does not impact my feelings towards any of the actual teams or the great journalists who write for the respective USA TODAY websites.
With that being said, lets tear apart these top 25 rankings and see what the heck is going on.
