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Needlessly fixing (more) college football logos

Correcting small idiosyncrasies that honestly were just fine

John D. Bottero uses his jewelers lupe to examine the stamp on a pewter flask that Nina Kass of Nob... Photo by Doug Jones/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

There is so so much going on in the world that seems unfix-able. But one thing I know I can fix are wonky college football logos. I did this back in 2019 to decidedly mixed reviews (looking at you, Kansas State fans), and decided I’d give it another go.

To be honest, most of these logos are just fine as is. The small asymmetrical aspects are hardly noticeable and probably not worth fixing. But here I am nonetheless, spending hours fixing them, because sometimes once even the smallest of errors appears on your radar, it’s impossible to ignore it. I hope this provides you a small bit of satisfaction in seeing slight errors corrected, but more than anything I’ll probably just point out something you can never unsee or ruin a beloved logo from your childhood.

Enjoy.

Mississippi St. Bulldogs

Oh this logo. Perfectly fine at first sight, but wow that “STATE” is a piece of work. The middle letter (A) is not centered on the banner (fig. 1), there is more empty space on right side of the banner than on the left (fig. 2) and the “S” is narrower than every other letter for some unexplained reason (fig. 3). As a result, the entire word “STATE” feels like it’s falling to the left.

Forget what I said about these errors being small and unfix-able, this thing is a travesty and needs to be corrected tomorrow.

Indiana Hoosiers

Another logo that looks fine, good event. Everyone loves interlocking letters. But the size of the serifs (fig. 1) and width of the letters themselves (fig. 2) are inconsistent. Let’s change that.

Air Force Falcons

Another case of inconsistent serifs, mostly because this logo has been around for quite a while (since the 1960s). It looks good as it is, but it could be just a bit better.

LSU Tigers

Apparently LSU’s photo was designed by someone who had never seen a letter “u” before. The sharp corner being on the left side of the letter has never made any sense to me. Moving it to the right not only makes it more closely resembler and actual “u,” it also sqaures off the corner of the logo itself (matching the other three corner).

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Overall I love this logo. It’s the rare block letter that still have some distinguishable characteristics. But the placement of the serifs is odd. The ones on the bottom corners seem to be pushed too far to the inside, and the bottom middle serif should be lower, allowing the letter to come to more of a point (like the two on top).

TCU Horned Frogs

I’ve always loved this logo, so I was surprised when I realized that it is not immune to a few fixes. First you’ll notice that the arc across the top of the letters is not maintained throughout (fig. 1) in fact the arc increases as you go lower. Maybe this was an intentional choice, but in the name of uniformity, that’s been corrected. In addition, the U is much wider than the “T” (fig. 2) and it is not clear why.

Texas Longhorns

A true icon in the logo community. You see this silhouette and you instantly know what it stands for. But let’s take a closer look at those horns. If you look at longhorn cattle in real life, this really is not what their horns look like. They generally have a steeper curve upward and come to more of a point. Let’s see if we can get this logo closer to perfection.

Ah yes, that’s better.