2020 Blackshirts

I am a give it to the starter type person. The original idea was to use the jersey for practice contrast so coaches could track the starters easily and manage the reps and what not. When the team got good and the defense was excellent, people started talking about the Blackshirt tradition. Those shirts were hard to get, not because of some long standing code of honor associated with handing out the shirts, but because the depth chart was thick with super starts. You wanted on the field, you had to wade through that to get there and if you became a starter, it was a very big deal. I say it comes down to the start by a guy who has WON the job and owns that spot exclusively. If you are on the depth chart as Joe Somebody --OR-- Rob Average, then neither guy gets it. You have to WIN the job outright. Let's keep recruiting. Let's keep training. Let's keep developing. At some point, the quality of the depth chart will mean that the Blackshirt name has meaning as the defense will be able to stand with some of the best ever to have played at DONU.

 
knapplc said:
This whole "earn it" thing is nonsense. 
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That's an odd take, since that was supposedly how the Blackshirt tradition started.

"...the black pullovers were given only to first-team defenders, as a way to motivate those on the lower units.

Initially, the black pullovers were distributed each day at practice and collected afterward. A player might have a black pullover one day and a gray one the next. They had to continually be earned."

https://huskers.com/news/2018/1/26/211694410.aspx

 
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ScarletRevival said:
That's an odd take, since that was supposedly how the Blackshirt tradition started.

"...the black pullovers were given only to first-team defenders, as a way to motivate those on the lower units.

Initially, the black pullovers were distributed each day at practice and collected afterward. A player might have a black pullover one day and a gray one the next. They had to continually be earned."

https://huskers.com/news/2018/1/26/211694410.aspx
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The team started the season with Blackshirts, per that article.

 
ScarletRevival said:
Where does it say that?

What part of "They continually had to be earned" did you not understand?
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I don't care if a player gains or loses their Blackshirt during the year. I care that they hand them out before the season starts and they don't perpetuate this circus, which breeds threads like this every year. Whether a player gets moved up or down from starter to backup throughout the year is an internal matter.

 
knapplc said:
It did. Read the link I provided. Babcock reported it in another story.
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I don't see it.

The best I come up (from the Babcock account): "Whenever they were first used in practice, the black mesh vests were handed out at the start and turned in afterward. On occasion, they could even be changed during practice."

 
ScarletRevival said:
I don't see it.

The best I come up (from the Babcock account): "Whenever they were first used in practice, the black mesh vests were handed out at the start and turned in afterward. On occasion, they could even be changed during practice."
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Here you go

A newspaper account indicated the team was divided before the start of spring drills in 1964, half working under Kelly and Jim Ross, half under Corgan and Carl Selmer. Also according to the account, black and gold scrimmage vests would be used by the first- and second-team defensive units, respectively, red and green vests used by the first- and second-team offensive units.
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ScarletRevival said:
When is the first game of the season played?
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What's your contention here? That under Devaney, they divided the defense into four groups in the Spring, the top unit was the Blackshirts, but in Fall camp they took the Blackshirts away for... reasons? Or whatever?

If you have some source that shows that, please share.

 
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