Big Ten football: Ranking the 5 most iconic helmets in the conference

3. Ohio State

Rolling in at No. 3 on this list are the Buckeyes — the most well-known and feared football program in the Big Ten.

Ohio State’s first true scarlet and gray helmet was designed in 1955 and featured a straightforward design. With one red stripe down the middle and grey sides with painted red numbers, Ohio State’s first helmet designs seemed very generic, and frankly, they were.

In 1960 the Buckeyes changed the helmet’s design by expanding the width of the red stripe. This design would stick around until the 1970s when the infamous helmet stickers were added, and the helmet’s base was changed to red with a silver stripe.

In 1968, Ohio State football rolled out a brand new, flashy, beautiful helmet design — a design that the program still wears to this day. This new helmet featured a matte gray/silver base with a single red stripe down the middle. Unlike the program’s previous helmets, this helmet also saw a pair of white stripes on the outside of the red and a pair of black stripes outside of the white.

Additionally, numbers were added to the backs of the helmets, and the modern-day Buckeye helmet stickers were decreased in size and added to the helmets.

Unlike OSU helmets of the past, the Buckeyes’ new helmets featured grey face masks to match both school colors and the primary shell of the helmet.

Over the years, the helmet has undergone a few simple changes. The numbers on the back have been moved around and changed in size and font. The helmet stickers have been redesigned, varied in size, and applied in different areas for different eras of Buckeye football — though, for the most part, the helmet has stayed the same.

In 2009, Ohio State debuted a throwback helmet. This helmet featured a white base with a single red stripe and painted black numbers for their win at Michigan to close out the season. In the following year, the Buckeyes again brought out brand new helmets, this time featuring an all-red helmet with a single sticker on the rear of the helmet during the team’s win over Michigan.

In 2011, Ohio State once again wore a throwback helmet featuring a 1965-era design with silver sides and a large red stripe down the middle. This helmet was worn during Ohio State’s game against Wisconsin.

In 2015 and 2016, Ohio State football rolled out two different black helmet designs — the program’s first time using a black base for their helmets. In 2015, the Bucks chose to replace the silver of their generic helmet with black for one game use. In 2016, however, Ohio State went with all-matte black helmets during their nail-biting win over Michigan.

For the Buckeyes’ 2017 win over Michigan, the team rolled out brand new silver and black helmets, though the design still resembled the typical scarlet and grey helmets that the team usually wears. The only change to the OSU helmets in the 2020s was the addition of the Rose Bowl logo onto the back of the helmets for the Buckeyes’ win over Utah in the 2022 Rose Bowl game and the CFP logo for Ohio States playoff appearance in 2020.