Helmets of Future College Teams


This page contains announced helmet designs for college teams that will begin varsity play in the year 2023 or later; there were two new college teams in 2022-2023. The new teams for the 2022-2023 season were Hilbert College (an NCAA Division III independent team) and North American University (an NAIA independent team). Helmet images for the new-for-2022 teams have been moved to their respective 'conference' pages.

If you are associated with one of these future teams and have information about what the team's helmet design will look like, I would certainly appreciate hearing from you, but PLEASE wait until a ***FINAL*** decision is made about what the helmets will look like!

One fact which became abundantly clear to me after having worked on this web site for several years is that many colleges will put together for ceremonies associated with the arrival of varsity football some sort of helmet design that is never really intended to be a "prototype" design for the team; it would probably be better to call such a helmet a "prop" helmet. It is my impression that decisions about actual helmet designs are usually reserved for the head coach to make, and rarely will a head coach have been named as soon as a decision is made to institute a team. So, without additional information to indicate otherwise, I do not consider photographs from "football introduction festivities" showing "prop" helmets to be reliable information about actual future helmet designs.

The following colleges and universities have announced that they will be adding varsity football programs either in 2023 or subsequent years (first year of play in parentheses):

There certainly may be others as well which I have not heard about, so please let me know if you have any additions! (including colleges in Canada and junior or community colleges).


New teams for the 2023 season

EASTERN UNIVERSITY

A club football team played for this school in 2022 but the 2023 team will be an NCAA Division III team participating in the Middle Atlantic Conference. The 2022 team used maroon helmets with a "wing" logo on the sides. Maroon and white are the school colors.


THOMAS UNIVERSITY

This team will be called the "Night Hawks" and the school colors are listed as green, black, and white. No information about a helmet design has yet been found or received.


New teams for the 2024 season

ANDERSON UNIVERSITY

"Trojans" will be the team nickname and the school colors are listed as black and gold.


CALVIN UNIVERSITY

This team will be known as the "Knights" and the school colors are listed as maroon and gold.


SIMPSON UNIVERSITY

This team will be known as the "Red Hawks" and the school colors are listed as red and black.


Other colleges which may start football teams

Below are listed some other colleges which may be adding football as a varsity sport in the near future, or which at least appear to be considering doing so, and some others which have recently rejected the idea. For each of these, it is my impression that the addition of football is not yet a certainty. (There are probably many others besides those listed here; reports about additional schools, both in the United States and Canada, would be appreciated.) I usually purge entries from this list after a decade or so if nothing happens.