2020 Blackshirts

When talking bout blackshirts...
 

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When the team shows the intimidation factor of the black shirt history, I will worry about them.  Just because you are first team defense currently does not measure up to being a black shirt in my thinking.  You guys will argue over anything.  Now put your masks back on and go to the basement.

 
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knapplc said:
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?
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My contention is that these 2 statements (1 of which is not yours) do not jive with how the Blackshirt  tradition originally started as per the articles you and I both posted.

"Just do what it was always intended to be.  11 starters at the beginning of the season. "

"I care that they hand them out before the season starts"

Per the Huskers.com article, "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."

That pretty clearly shows that the Blackshirt tradition didn't start as "The 11 starters as of the first game of the season." 

 
ScarletRevival said:
My contention is that these 2 statements (1 of which is not yours) do not jive with how the Blackshirt  tradition originally started as per the articles you and I both posted.

"Just do what it was always intended to be.  11 starters at the beginning of the season. "

"I care that they hand them out before the season starts"

Per the Huskers.com article, "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."

That pretty clearly shows that the Blackshirt tradition didn't start as "The 11 starters as of the first game of the season." 
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They handed them out before the season started under Devaney. They handed them out before the season started under Osborne. They handed them out before the season started under Solich.

Bo comes in and decides they have to "earn" it and all the armchair quarterbacks are all, "HURRRRRR DURRRR YEAH EARN EM" because whatever.

It's a stupid distraction and it doesn't make the defense better if they "earn them" during the season. If a coach can't make his team ready from Spring through Fall Camp then a few games in September & October aren't going to magically make a defense "earn them" that late.

All the work to "earn them" has to be done before the bullets fly. If they're still figuring out how to "earn them" during the season they're not prepared.

And MAYBE THAT'S WHY OUR DEFENSES HAVE SUCKED THE BETTER PART OF THE LAST TWO DECADES.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 
The best traditions don't require this much thinking and/or debating. 

Hand them out before the season. That's it. Never take them away during the season. On occasion reward one to an emerging star mid-year.

 
(article from 2007) https://kearneyhub.com/huskersnews/past-players-say-defense-lacks-the-old-swagger/article_dc951890-57f3-5432-9d7c-6e10f0091c8e.html

Kevin Ramaekers was taking it pretty hard from Charlie McBride in a Nebraska defensive film room the Tuesday after a Husker football game in 1991. McBride kept rewinding a play over and over. It always turned out the same. Ramaekers couldn't do anything about it but sink down in his chair.

"He called me the Dancing Bear," Ramaekers said. "He said, 'I can't believe I have a starting Dancing Bear on my squad."'

 
That was nothing compared to what would happen a few hours later to the defensive tackle from Norfolk, Neb. Ramaekers repeated the same mistake in practice and McBride, the Huskers' long-time defensive coordinator, was coming with something way more damaging than a cutesy nick-name. Ramaekers was about to forfeit his "Blackshirt" practice jersey. Words could not describe what that meant to a 20-year-old sophomore who had wept only months before when he first found it hanging in his locker.

"Coach McBride grabbed me by the neck and said, 'Take that off right now and give it to Jamie (Liewer),"' Ramaekers said. "If you were going to mess up, he wanted you going about 120 mph and I was going about 50. Talk about humbling. I walked down to the scout team and people were standing around thinking, 'This guy was a Blackshirt, and he just gave it away."'

 
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I feel blackshirts should be for internal use only and not discussed with us at all. 
 

What’s the purpose? Motivation, but the shame of publicly losing one would have the opposite effect is I would think. 
 

 
krc1995 said:
I feel blackshirts should be for internal use only and not discussed with us at all. 
 

What’s the purpose? Motivation, but the shame of publicly losing one would have the opposite effect is I would think. 
 
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Marketing.  They sell a lot of blackshirt stuff.  

 
Black Shirts was so cool back when we had some of the baddest a$$ Defensive players/defenses in the country. Hell do those old OG Blackshirts even come around anymore?

 
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