For four decades, few symbols have been as closely tied to Boise State’s identity and national prominence as The Blue. Albertsons Stadium’s recently-installed turf represents more than merely the seventh iteration of the iconic field since its inception in 1986.
The new field arrives in a year that carries particular weight in Boise State history.
Alongside Boise State’s inaugural year in the Pac-12 and major athletic facility upgrades, 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of The Blue, a milestone the school plans to celebrate at its football home opener on Sept. 12.
A centerpiece of the celebration will come with the help of renowned artist Armando Villarreal, who hand-painted a special edition helmet commemorating 40 years of The Blue that will be worn against Memphis in the home opener.
For Villareal, the project symbolizes more than just artwork.
“Once you get to know the people and the program, to get to help tell their story, it’s just unbelievable,” Villarreal said. “It’s so much fun and so rewarding to get to tell a story that means so much to so many different people. As an artist, that’s a dream come true for your art to mean something to somebody.”
Villarreal began painting motorcycles full-time in 2010. He eventually transitioned into sports art and airbrushed his first football helmet for Mississippi State in 2018.
After painting a helmet for Illinois in 2024, he was contacted by Boise State Assistant Athletic Director of Merchandising and Brand Operations Matthew Sterling, who invited him to create a helmet for the Broncos. The result was last year’s Front Porch of Idaho helmet.
While touring the stadium before the helmets were unveiled, Sterling half-jokingly floated the idea of designing a helmet to resemble the turf in celebration of The Blue’s 40th anniversary in 2026. Sterling recalls that Villarreal looked at him as if to say, “You’re crazy.”
From there, the initial blueprint for the helmet was born. Villarreal, Sterling and the rest of the athletic department began collaborating on various designs and features that would go into the final product.
“It came out better than expected,” Sterling said. “It was amazing. A lot of hands went into bringing my sarcastic comment to reality on the field.”
The backdrop of the helmet’s design represents the blue turf itself, with Boise State’s retro logo, used on the very first version of the field, on one side of the helmet, and a 40-yard-line marker on the other side to represent the 40th Anniversary.
Seven hashmarks run across the top of the helmet, representing each of the seven renditions of the Blue.
The back bumper of the helmet reads, “Est. 1986,” with the front bumper reading, “The Blue.”
Even the smallest details carry history: the 40-yard-line marker uses the same numerical font featured on the original 1986 field..
“One thing [that’s] fun working with Boise, is they like to tell a story with everything, and everything we put on [the helmet] has a reason as to why,” Villarreal said. “I love the helmet, I thought it turned out awesome.”
Similar to last year’s Front Porch of Idaho helmets, the game-worn helmets will be auctioned off after the game, giving fans an opportunity to own a piece of Boise State history.
Part of that history is the evolution of The Blue, which has gone through numerous changes since its inception.
In 1986, Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier had the ambitious idea to switch from the traditional green turf that the stadium had since 1970 to an all-blue field, the first non-green football field in the country.
The Blue made its debut on Sept. 13 of that year in a 74-0 Boise State victory over Humboldt State.
What initially looked like a gimmick quickly grew into a defining part of the program and its history.
When it came time for a new field in 1995, the athletic department stuck with the blue, and the anomaly gained more national attention during Boise State’s subsequent transition into the Big West Conference, which included a 1999 bowl-game win over Louisville on The Blue on national television.
The third Blue arrived before the 2002 season, with the school deciding to switch from AstroTurf to AstroPlay, a synthetic surface designed to feel more like real grass. The field also included a new Bronco logo.
This version of the field saw the most important stretch in the program’s history, with the team capturing five straight conference titles and an undefeated 2006 season that culminated in the legendary Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma.
A new field was installed in 2008, and The Blue became Boise State’s nationally recognized backdrop during the Kellen Moore/Chris Petersen era.
The fifth version came in 2010, and by 2011, the university had even obtained a federal trademark for the color blue as applied to artificial turf.
The sixth Blue was installed in 2019 and carried the Broncos through another major era that included the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance in 2024.
Now, 40 years after Bleymaier’s gamble, the seventh Blue enters a new chapter in the Pac-12, bringing four decades of tradition with it. That history will take the field in a new form this Saturday, when the 40th Anniversary helmets make their debut.
“We’re cutting edge, we’re different,” head football coach Spencer Danielson said when asked about the 40th Anniversary helmets. “So much is encapsulated in that helmet, and we talk about it as a team, that, ‘[The Blue] is home and you protect what matters most to you.’ There’s not a lot of teams that are doing that or have the forward thinking to do it and that’s hats off to our administration.”
Boise State’s custom helmets celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Blue, hand-painted by Armando Villarreal, will debut in Albertsons Stadium for the Broncos’ home opener against Memphis on Sept. 12.
