New rankings have district replacing football helmets

HUMBLE, Texas – Humble Independent School District officials have decided to replace football helmets that received a low score in newly released helmet safety rankings, Local 2 Investigates has learned.

Some of HISD's players used the Riddell VSR4, which received only one out of five stars in Virginia Tech's football safety rating system. The helmets being replaced account for 10 percent of the district's total helmets.

The new helmet rankings were released in May. Ratings released last year also showed the VSR4 ranking low on the list. The district said it learned of the rankings early this year.

"As soon as we became aware of the study we made the decision to pull those from our inventory and replace them," district spokeswoman Jamie Mount told Local 2 Investigates. "They will not be issued to students."

Helmets ranking at the top of the list with five stars are the Schutt AiR XP Pro VTD, Schutt Vengeance VTD, Riddell 360, Rawlings Quantum Plus, Rawlings Tachyon Xenith EPIC, Xenith X2, Xenith X2E and Riddell Revolution Speed.

The Riddell VSR4 was the only helmet to receive one star.

Click here to see how other helmets ranked.

Humble ISD was not the only school to use lower-rated helmets.

Waller ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Klein ISD and Conroe ISD also used lower-ranked helmets, according to those districts and open records requests filed by Local 2 investigative reporter Jace Larson.

The Virginia Tech test has multiple phases, including in-lab testing and real-world scenarios on the practice field.