TCU football helmets have a memorable history dating back more than 50 years. They have had a combination of player numbers, images of a horned frog, and the letters TCU over the years. They have been white, purple, silver, and occasionally black. The 1960s saw four different helmet designs. Much of that period, the helmet was white or purple with the player’s number (for example, 88) on the side of the helmet, in either a sans serif font or a block font. During 1966, the helmet had a strange looking horned frog head. The following year, the letters TCU were on the helmet; It was similar to the modern Texas A&M logo with a large T and a smaller C and U on each side. In the 1970s, the letters TCU reappeared on the helmet, in a stylized serif font with T, C, and U on a diagonal path from the side of the mask to the back.
Perhaps one of TCU’s most beloved and famous logos appeared in 1977. The “Flying T” had a large T running from front to back. C and U were below. It had an ESPN logo-like feel to it. As a template, the C and U were not completely connected. There were 3 and 2 unconnected blocks of text. The original Flying T helmet was silver, but in 1980 it was purple and it remained that way until 1991. By 1992, management apparently wanted a new look and decided to retire the Flying T; although as recently as 2010, there were posts on Facebook asking them to return it. In 1992, the helmet remained purple, but changed to three capital letters of the same size from TCU. They had an upward slope on the T, a level slope on the C, and a downward slope on the U. The following year, the helmet was changed from purple to silver and the letters TCU were outlined in white. This design was stable for 2 years before being replaced by a black outline and black face mask. Added a horned frog below the lettering, the color was back to purple, and this design was kept with some minor tweaks from 1998 to 2010. In some specific games, Nike made a custom black or silver colored helmet with blood from red frogs (horned frogs spit blood from their eyes to scare off predators) and a frog-like scale. Finally, during the 2011 Rose Bowl game, the frog had a rose in its mouth. The latest helmet marks a return to TCU lettering without a frog. Looking at the last few years with so many changes and adjustments, it is unlikely that it will last without some changes soon.