Won't be handed out until Chins sees who deserves them in the first game. Here we go again. I have always believed before the first game they get handed to the starting defense, but oh well.
No Blackshirts
- Thread starter Husker.Wed._rivals
- Start date
You are echoing Bill Callahan, Bo Pelini, and Smilin' Mike. The days of just handing for traditions sake is over.
I like this new approach. Gotta earn it on the field.
What did we finish in total defense last year? They shouldn't be handed out until we have players that have earned them. People forget that when we handed them out at the beginning of the year every year, we actually had a good defense every year. If Devaney or Osborne ever had a defense as bad as this one was last year, I guarantee they wouldn't have just handed them out at the beginning of the year just because it was "tradition".
Personally I think having that blackshirt hanging in your locker tradition is way over played in the modern game. Play like a Blackshirt on Saturday and worry about what color your practice jersey is at the end of the year. To me the tradition is more about how you practice and play than that damned practice jersey. Frankly I would like to see Frost make it an end of the year award instead of answering stupid questions about it during the year. Award them the last week of the regular season. We've had too many guys with black jerseys quitting when the going got tough these past 10-15 years.
As I recall, Devaney needed a way to readily identify the #1 defensive players from the #1 offensive players when they practiced 1 on 1s, so he sent Carl Selmer (or somebody) to a local sporting goods store and the only XXL mesh shirts they had enough of were black. Those were given to the 11 starters. Nothing was ever said about how good the starters were, just that they were the starters. So I disagree about guarenteeing FHCBD wouldn't have handed them out this year. Of course, FHCBD would have never had a defense that bad, so the point is probably moot.
The tradition started as a way to identify 1st team defense, that is how you were deemed deserving. You won first team. That's it. That is the tradition. What it is now is whatever the current coach or DC defines Blackshirt. Don't tell me Charlie McBride and Chinander talked, because Charlie didn't start the tradition .
Yeah, I don't get it...I don't care either but it seems like you would just hand them out to the dudes that start.
The tradition started just as Husker.Wed outlined. It was merely a way to tell the offense and defense apart. Remember back when this tradition started we still has some guys playing both ways and practice jerseys IF I recall correctly were all the same color.
I wonder if the message board traditionalists in the 60's complained that black wasn't a school color?
Depending on packages you might have 18 different starters.
Probably.
I bet a number of strongly worded letters were penned
So do you hand out different Blackshirts depending on what package you'll be featuring that week? Personally I'm tired of hearing about handing out Blackshirts and I just want them to play like they want to live up to the tradition of defense at NU. Hand em out at the end of the year and end the damned drama. To me having to earn them with a season of work would mean a bunch more than at the start of the year. Then give them an actual black NU jersey framed to hang on their wall.
Charlie used to yank Blackshirts in practice as punishment. The blackshirt is no longer a thing, but a concept or a state of being. The TV guys call the Nebraska defense the blackshirts, regardless of what kids NU is fielding on D.
Sure, why not? It is not going to be a huge change. You might have 2 different starters.
I am with you, I don't care about it anyway, I just think it is a cool name.
As I have referred to Chin and Fishers summer state tour spot quite a bit on here, they explicitly said they were not handing them out "like M&Ms." At that particular time in June, he said there were 0 blackshirts at the time (literally held up his hand and made a '0' sign), and said there were only maybe 4 potential blackshirts off the top of his head. Obviously fall camp hadn't begun and here we are now during game week, but he has held true to his word. Also... Scott makes the final call.
As I said, each DC or HC adopts their own version of what the Blackshirts represented. Don't get me wrong, I really don't care all that much, it just makes it more difficult for the average fan to keep up with. When it becomes difficult to keep up with, fans lose interest and the tradition becomes less meaningful. Blackshirt to you is different than Blackshirt to me, which is different than Blackshirt to Devaney which is different than Blackshirt to Pelini.
Starting in 1964 unlimited substitution is restored and platooning becomes the accepted mode of play...
I believe 1964 was the first year without looking it up..
Well, you are incorrect. The “tradition” had nothing to do with the quality of the defenders. It had to do with who the starting defenders were at the time. If it was tied to a quality issue we would be forever debating the merits of who is deserving and who is not. And as just as a matter of information, Nebraska has not always had a “good” defense every year. That is what led to some disappointing losses.
If this was a Devaney team after 1963 they would have the first team defense wearing their Blackshirts in practice this week... Probably Osborne too..
It's less meaningful because the defense has sucked for about 7 years. Fans won't care about the process once they are good again.
I doubt most fans in the stadium, never mind fans watching on TV, know who actually has/doesn't have a blackshirt and aren't that concerned about it. To them, the NU defense is the Blackshirt Defense. I tend not to use the term. However, I can vibe with Chin's approach. Dominant defense was historically the calling card of the Blackshirts. NU's defense has for the most part been far away from that. So take this time to use it as a carrot and as kids approach the standard, they'll find one in their locker.
They should award them on a weekly basis based on objective criteria. You lead the team in tackles this week? Blackshirt. More than one sack? Blackshirt. Force a turnover? Blackshirt. Etc. Etc. Coaches create the list of criteria before the season and then they don't have to worry about it the rest of the season. Each guy gets a black skull and bones sticker for the back of his helmet (just one dammit).
I assume this is a dumb idea for multiple reasons, I'd just like to get it back to where it's not such an annoying topic for the coaches to try and sort out.
I assume this is a dumb idea for multiple reasons, I'd just like to get it back to where it's not such an annoying topic for the coaches to try and sort out.
Fact of the matter is the black practice jerseys were the cheapest so they ( Corgan and Kelly)picked them out over the Green and yellow ones..
We'll agree to disagree, the multiple threads on multiple sites about who gets Blackshirts and when will they get them, says fans care about the process.
I am just one guy that has sort of lost interest in who gets them and have sort of just adopted the whole defense as the Blackshirts.
This thread shows there is still a lot of interest in it. The announcers will call the defense the blackshirts whether they have them or not.
I think you hand them out to the first team D and then whatever twist the staff wants to put on it is up to them.
But their lack of giving them out doesn't really juice the motor for me I guess.
Also, with the aggressive defensive scheme, we may not see typical blackshirt defense this year.. so call me crazy, but I'd give them to the first string players and take the positives where I can get them in year 1 of the new scheme.
I think you hand them out to the first team D and then whatever twist the staff wants to put on it is up to them.
But their lack of giving them out doesn't really juice the motor for me I guess.
Also, with the aggressive defensive scheme, we may not see typical blackshirt defense this year.. so call me crazy, but I'd give them to the first string players and take the positives where I can get them in year 1 of the new scheme.
As a traditionalist I don’t care how Frost staff handles the tradition, if they have a better way of doing it so be it...
What ever motovates the players to play hard and play fast and physical works for me..
What ever motovates the players to play hard and play fast and physical works for me..
Yeah that's the way it started. I'm as big of a traditionalist as anybody but traditions change. Very rarely is a tradition celebrated the exact same way it started.
With how good our defense has been throughout the Osborne and Devaney years, the black shirt tradition came to mean a lot more than just the 11 starters. It came to mean a tough brand of defensive football unique only to Nebraska. That's what the black shirt tradition meant at it's highest, and I think we should do whatever we can to uphold that tradition.
It became about quality. If you don't think quality played a huge part in the spread of the tradition, I don't know what to tell you. College football fans all across the country know about the Black shirt tradition because we were among the top teams defensively every single year. If we were some middling defensive team during that period, no one around the country would know or care about the Blackshirts. There would probably be a lot more Nebraskans who didn't care about it as well.
There's a huge difference between how a tradition starts and how it is continued, celebrated, and kept alive. I think people are more focused on how it started and that's all a tradition can ever be. How it started wouldn't mean a damn thing if it wasn't kept alive by high quality play over the years. The little changes every year. The things that don't change over the years. That means way more to making a tradition than how it started.
Well it sure hasn’t been kept alive by our high quality of play since joining the B1G..
Well, tell me when the last time we had a quality D and how do you qualify that? We haven't had a great D for years. So you are saying it started with tradition of needing different color jerseys but was kept alive by the quality D the Huskers played? Well, if that is the case, we should have ditched the tradition since 97 or so. Then you have ecery coach since it started doing it differently.
It's for the players, not us fans. Could you tell us who all had a black shirt last year? The players value what it stands for in the tradition of the program. Quality varies from year to year but the tradition remains. We haven't had great DBs the past few years but they got a BS the same as the Browns or others.
This is the right approach. The D will be referred to as the Blacksirts on Saturday regardless of the color of their practice jersey.
This is kind of my feelings on it too. The different times and standards that different DCs have used as when they should be handed out has kind of diminished the whole thing to me. It still means something to the players that get them, and that's great. But I have tired of the whole "when are the Blackshirts going to be handed out" question. Most people think of the defense as a whole as the Blackshirts anyway regardless of who, if anyone has been wearing black jerseys in practice. Is it wrong to call the defense this week the Blackshirts because they haven't been wearing black jerseys in practice? When fans yell "come on, Blackshirts!" are they only referring to those players who wear black jerseys in practice? The issue has just been so confused to the point where I don't care who wears black jerseys in practice and who doesn't. They could be the #1 defense in the country and it wouldn't make any difference to me whether they wear black jerseys in practice or not..
I am a traditionalist but I have no problem with this. Mainly because, as Chin pointed out, there really aren't set in stone starters yet at many positions. If you hand out 18 or 19 blackshirts it starts to lose its meaning. Wait until the solid starting 11-13 guys gets settled, then hand them out