When the Nebraska football team arrived at the training facility Tuesday morning, 12 players had a surprise waiting for them.
The Nebraska coaching staff awarded 12 Blackshirts to its first-team defense, continuing a yearly program tradition.
“It was really neat to watch them come out of the gates with them, you could see the excitement in their eyes and they knew what it was about,” defensive coordinator Tony White said.
The Blackshirt recipients: starting defensive linemen Ty Robinson, Nash Hutmacher and Jimari Butler; linebackers John Bullock, Mikai Gbayor and MJ Sherman; defensive backs Tommi Hill, Isaac Gifford, Malcolm Hartzog, DeShon Singleton and Marques Buford.
Nebraska’s Cameron Lenhardt earned a Blackshirt on Tuesday because he is “a low-maintenance, blue-collar guy who knows what to do and how do to it,” said defensive coordinator Tony White.
The 12th and final recipient was sophomore defensive lineman Cameron Lenhardt, a player that White said is “OOU” or “One Of Us,” a common saying within the NU program referring to doing things the right way.
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“He’s what this place and this program is all about,” White said of Lenhardt. “You watch him in the offseason and he’s 100 miles an hour, no excuses and always in front of the lines. Just kind of a low-maintenance, blue-collar guy who knows what to do and how do to it, and he does it at an elite level.”
Other notes
* Junior Marques Buford earned a starting role at cornerback because he’s a “playmaker,” White said. Having played four games at safety in a redshirt season last fall, Buford moved to cornerback this offseason as secondary coach John Butler cross-trained NU’s defensive backs at every position.
“It just felt like right now you go with the five DBs that you feel are the most experienced and that can play; you couldn’t keep him (Buford) off the field,” White said. “That (doesn’t) mean you won’t see him at safety as well, again, all those guys are interchangeable.”
* Junior quarterback Heinrich Haarberg may still have a role to play in the Husker offense. While the Huskers may not use freshman Dylan Raiola heavily in the quarterback run game, offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield hinted that Haarberg could see the field in select offensive packages.
“We still have Heinrich out there and Heinrich can do a bunch of different things for us; Heinrich’s gonna be out there on the field with Dylan a lot,” Satterfield said. “Shoot, Heinrich’s too athletic to be standing over there on the sideline holding a clipboard.”
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