Food for thought

[Frustrated]

I think we need to remove the "excellence" patches from the front of the jerseys, remove the names from the back and also paint over the NC trophy pictures on the Big Red equipment truck and elsewhere. In fact, I think we should remove references to the old conference championships as well.

 

My point is simple, if we want to act like champions, we need to actually be champions again. Of something, anything. We aren't champions anymore. Blackshirts...ick. Forget that tradition for a bit. Our players and coaches need to realize that they have to earn our respect and those traditions. They haven't done that ON THE FIELD since the 1990s. Fifteen years of suck. Traditions are gone. We need a fresh start.

[True2tRA]

Or instead of erasing all evidence of our programs great history, we could hire a Head Coach that understand and embraces that history. Hell, maybe he even instilla some of that PRIDE and PASSION into his players.

 

I know, crazy stuff......I'm just spitballing here.

[bisonwiches]

I get what you're trying to say but let's take it back a bit. Those kids bust their ass and we are "fans" this talk about them earning our respect and stuff is kind of crap. We are passionate fans, but we are in no way entitled. We proudly display those trophies and other things because we are a proud passionate fan base

[irafreak]

Yeah you can't hang this on the kids. They're doing what the coaches have taught them to do. Different athletes same coaches same problems.

[Frustrated]

I disagree. Not that we are proud and passionate, that's a given. But the focus on the past is holding us up. We can't seem to get past the "glory days." that makes us Michigan. Think about that for a minute, does anyone think Michigan is relevant? We ARE Michigan (figuratively). We aren't any different. We like to talk the talk about how awesome we are to opposing fans, and teams and all that. But, does that matter? (is it even true anymore?) We, as a fan base are starving for success, for attention, to be perceived as an elite program, one that does things "the right way." (ahem, Lawrence Phillips). We need to get back to basics, to Nebraska football. We need to be someone that gets circled on opponents' schedule...for the right reasons...now, we may be circled, but because they think we are an easy win.

[bisonwiches]

Look all over the board..... We get that we are underwhelming and have been for some time. Does that mean that we disregard everything that our team has accomplished? No. What is one of the things that draws recruits here, our proud tradition and passionate fan base/game atmosphere. All of us on this board recognize there is an issue but scrapping our past accomplishments and demanding respect from the players is not going to improve our program

[ShawnWatson]

Oh my god this is a f'ing great thread.

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

This program doesn't have the weather or the recruiting area like most top tier programs do this day in age. We have 2 things that attract recruits, fan base and tradition. The fan base is falling apart, tradition is all we have left at the moment. To take away our championships and our blackshirt tradition would be suicide to this program. There is no going back to "basics" we are one of the oldest programs in the nation, we need experience now. We can not rewrite the books, that's what Callahan and Pederson tried to do.

[Frustrated]

I disagree completely. None of the current recruits were born when we were awesome. We need to dial it back. We have awesome history, but nothing recent. Nothing. Maybe, asking the current/future players to EARN something is the answer??? How can you dismiss that? What we are doing is definitely NOT working! You don't get to simply call yourself a champion and make it so. We ran away from the Big Twelve to get away from big bad* Texas...is this really better? Bob Greise saying that we are a mediocre Big Ten team and that is our normal!? Really?!

 

We built our foundation on class and doing things the right way. How is giving black shirts to a defense that gets depantsed by one guy fostering that tradition? One guy. The only guy on the offense in question. Western Kentucky could stop him. We could not. I submit that we are not doing things the right way anymore. We are lost.

[Frustrated]

Oldest programs in the nation? WTF?