The major story this week is the Black Sunday fall of six of the seven undefeated Helmet Bowl Conference Championship teams.
Most of the teams were ambushed Sunday. For example, Valdosta State, who have amassed the most votes in the country so far, were WAY ahead of any Gulf South Conference challengers Sunday morning. By late Sunday afternoon the lead was in jeopardy and a flurry of tweets went out pushing for another round of voting. Alas, it was not enough and the Florida Tech Panthers surged ahead to win the Gulf South point. Tech, incidentally, tallied more votes in Week 7 than any other team. Second place in the country? Valdosta State, just 8 votes behind.
UNDEFEATED
Left undefeated are the Central Michigan Chippewas in the Mid-American Conference. We are chasing an interview with someone in the Equipment Room there, so if you know anyone, send them our way.
SEC
Yes, this conference leads the Helmet Bowl nation in disappointing vote totals. With all the noise about the SEC being the best conference in college football, expectations for a Helmet Bowl battle were high.
So, Tennessee and Mississippi have scored, but it is the Georgia Bulldogs and the Arkansas Razorbacks tied at the top of this conference with 2.5 points. Now, because there is three weeks left, any SEC team
could sweep these weeks and win the conference.
Who has the best helmet in the SEC? You can help decide. Check out the Southeastern Conference.
The other 63 conferences in the Helmet Bowl National Championship bracket may want to hope that no one here awakens their fan base.
PAC 12
With all the media in recent years about the helmets of the Oregon Ducks, we at Helmet Bowl expected heavy voting from the Northwest. Alas, not so.
However, Oregon scored their second point in Week 7, more than doubling up the strong Utah Utes fan base votes. The win brings the Ducks into a tie with the Arizona State Sun Devils in the PAC 12. FOUR teams trail them, all tied for second place just one point back: Oregon State, UCLA, Utah, and Washington.
This conference is anyone’s and if a fan base lights up, they could contend for the Helmet Bowl National Championship. Click here for the PAC-12 contest.
National Championship
The Helmet Bowl National Championship launches around Thanksgiving with a bracket of 64 Conference Winners. Helmet Bowl I is a single-elimination tournament. Lose and go home. Of course, voters continue—after all we are, together, going to find the greatest, coolest college football helmet in the entire nation. That’s why we’ve started with every conference in every division.
Teams will be ranked according to their individual team vote totals from the Conference contest. The Conference Champions from the 12 Conferences with the lowest total conference vote totals from the 10-week Conference Championships will not be invited to the National Championship.
So, the National bracket will eliminate half the teams each week, from 64 to 32, then 16 and 8. Eight teams will become four and then the Helmet Bowl National Champion will be crowed from the last one-on-one bracket which will conclude January 8, 2018.
Questions? Shoot them here: helmetbowl@helmettracker.com
Bearcats
It’s been an epic battle in theMid-America Intercollegiate for each of the seven weeks.
The Central Missouri Mules jumped out the first few weeks to take a lead, then won two-points for their Week 5 win.
Meanwhile, the NorthWest Missouri Bearcats have been chasing, picking up wins when the Mules were focused on other things.
Now the Bearcats have pulled even with the Mules, both with four points.
Three weeks left, guys. Who wants it? Click here for the contest.
Conference Standing Ties
Interestingly, there are no Conference ties in the DI FCS nor in the NAIA.
We’ve mentioned the SEC, PAC-12, and Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics. Here are the other SEVEN Conferences with teams tied so far:
- Great American: The Oklahoma Baptist Bison and the Southeastern Savage Storm
- Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic: Ashland Eagles and Ferris State Bulldogs
- Northeast 10: Saint Anslem Hawks, Southern Connecticut Owls
- Rocky Mountain Athletic: Colorado Mines Orediggers and the Fort Lewis Skyhawks
- New Jersey Athletic: Christopher Newport Captains and the New Jersey Lions
- Ohio Athletic: John Carroll Blue Streaks and Mount Union Purple Raiders
- The only Three-Way Tie in the Conference standings belongs to the Northern Athletics Collegiate where the Benedictine Eagles, Concordia Chicago Cougars, and the Concordia Wisconsin Falcons are knotted up at 2 points each.
Week 7 Ties
The Bethune-Cookman Wildcats of the Mid-Eastern Athletic brought in the fifth-most number of votes of all 777 college football teams in Helmet Bowl during Week 7. Oddly enough, so did the Howard Bison, who split the point with the Wildcats. This is the only Week 7 tie.
Question of the Week
Ok, so we can appreciate the rich orange of the Idaho State Bengals helmet. However, our question this week is how does a lid with a simple I over and S for Idaho State lead the Big Sky? Granted, the Montana State Bobcats large M on a gold-ish helmet, the NC of the Northern Colorado Bears, the PS of the Portland
State Vikings, the CP of the Cal Poly Mustangs offer no helmet design pressure. And, the laughing cat of Weber State Wildcats, the baseball-style scripted “Griz” of the Montana Grizzlies, the angry bird head of the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, and the, what?, nest under the S of the Sacramento Hornets could use some help. But the Eastern Washington Eagles design, the axe head of the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks, the grimacing avian of the Southern Utah Thunderbirds, and the charging horse of the UC Davis Aggies should be making headway here. Still, Idaho leads with 4 points over the 2 of Eastern Washington and the one each for North Dakota and Southern Utah. Big Sky Conference
Commissioner’s Choice
There are 31 “Hawks” in Helmet Bowl. THIRTY ONE!
The Chowan Hawks is unique. There is a kind-of triangle that starts at a point at the top of the back of the head and expands to the forehead. A Hawk peers down. You can’t really see it on the Helmet Bowl site because we can only show the side.
Chowan’s athletic logo shows a hawk head inside a large blue C. From the back of the C hangs a double feather to honor the Native American Algonquin Chowanook tribe that once populated the Northeast N.C. area near Murfreesboro where Chowan is located.
(Bowie State has sewn up the Central Intercollegiate Athletic, so the Hawks won’t be participating in the National tournament.)