It May be Past Time to Get Rid of Those White Helmets

Exactly when you knew Razorbacks were in trouble against Texas A&M

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Sep 30, 2023 9:27 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It wasn't exactly difficult to pinpoint the time at which you knew Arkansas was in serious trouble in Saturday's game against Texas A&M on Saturday. As soon as the broadcast showed them wearing those gosh-awful white helmets, you knew it was trouble.

Who keeps having this ridiculous idea to wear the things? I know it was a Jeff Long creation (Houston Nutt and Frank Broyles would never have allowed it), but why it persists is absolutely mind-boggling. The fact it ended up being about as lopsided as a 34-22 loss can be wasn't surprising.

One has to wonder who exactly makes these decisions. Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman would take the blame for it, but there's a sneaking guess it's the players' who wanted to wear the things. They always think they want to wear it and never play well when getting to do so.

Now I'll admit I'm not the biggest traditionalist in the world but there's some things that spell problems from the beginning. Messing with the brands is the biggest. Exactly who is responsible for designing things like these stupid uniform ideas and that front-facing Hog that looks like the community college in Jonesboro logo was dumb. Long signed off on it, so he bears the ultimate responsibility and we paid him to leave town for a variety of reasons and gave him the buyout he negotiated with himself.

As a complete admission, there are some things I'm superstitious about. Changing a unique brand is one of the biggest along with "haints" my grandmother always talked about in the 1960's. I've never gotten an exact description of what one is (my guess is something to do with ghosts), but she made it sound terrifying and I'm pretty sure that was a major contributor to getting white hair, although there's no real reason to be found about them.

If somebody can give me the big game they've won wearing them since they started back in 1952, I would be more than happy to hear it. The Hogs wore them a couple of years before going to the red helmets in 1954 and never going back to the white until after Broyles stepped aside as athletics director.

Over the last decade or so, the most notable thing they've represented is the start of something bad. In 2012 they wore white helmets in a game against Rutgers in Fayetteville and promptly lost. Bret Bielema kept trying to force them on us and it never worked after he took over.

They've worn them a lot against Texas A&M over the last decade and they've won one time. The Hogs also have played bad wearing red so that may not be the best indicator but it's beyond time to dump something that never should have happened in the modern age.

It also was the first game of the Chad Morris era in town and they wore them in the opener against Eastern Illinois back in 2018. That was a huge win and was the best game the entire two years he was here. If you needed any signal to end this stupid thing that should do it.