Apparently UH football is putting some serious thought into changing its helmet design. I have some strong opinions on helmet design and have even been considering doing an NCAA helmet tournament where I seek out the best helmets in each conference to ultimately determine what is the best helmet design in college football. Perhaps I'll do it or maybe I'll spare you. Not sure yet.

In any case, on my criteria the UH helmet fair too well, but my criteria don't take into account tradition, which can be important in its own way. I may rank the helmets of Nebraska or Notre Dame low, but that doesn't mean I think they should necessarily change it.

As for the Cougars, I can't say one way or another because I haven't seen two of the three designs (the third being the current one). One of the proposed replacements has the "wet cat" logo and the other is a combination of the interlocked "UH" and the cat.


Since the football program is hopefully on the heels of a strong turnaround, a new look might be in order. The problem with the wet cat logo is that it's awfully similar to a number of cat teams out there (NFL's Carolina and Jacksonville, NCAA's Pittsburgh). On the other hand, as someone points out on Coogfans, the UH logo is similar to that of higher-profile Kentucky Wildcats.

They've been going around the campus and asking students what they think, so this might just be a ruse to garner student interest (or at least recognition) of the football team. I still wish I could find out more about this. It also might have been nice to hear about this in the "official newspaper of the Houston Cougars," but I suppose that's too much to ask.