Subject: Austin Collie's changing facemasks
Here's Austin as a freshmanin 2004, wearing a tall but fairly commonQB/WR/TE mask. The standard (non-tall) version would be like what Brett Favre wears.
Collie went on a mission and missed the 2005 and 2006 seasons. In 2007, his facemask/helmet story starts getting complicated. Its hard to tell with these pictures exactly when he wore all of them, but one thing is for sure, Austin wore at least three different facemask combos last season and at least 2 different helmets, probably trying to find something comfortable after being out of the game for so long.
This photo is from the UCLA game on September 8, 2007. Notice the facemask is the same as his 2004 unit.
This one is undated, but must be from either the Arizona or Air Force games, as they were at home. Still the old mask.
Now things start to change. I call this the Eli Manning style mask, although it too has a funny designation from the manufacturerfrom whichI will spare you. I presume this one to be from a mid-season home game, maybe against Eastern Washington, Colorado State, or Texas Christian.
By the last game of the regular season, against San Diego State, Austin was wearing another mask, and a different helmet.
He wore this samemask in the Las Vegas Bowl against UCLA on December 22, 2007.
2008-Austin is wearing what has come to be a fairly standard kicker mask, double bar on top with the minimal jaw protection on the bottom. This mask gives superior vision. Ted Ginn Jr. wore one of these at Ohio State and now with the Miami Dolphins.
I'm curious to see if Austin switches masks again this season, plus we'll have him around for another year, so we'll see what happens.
Edited by: Colonel_Reb