Welcome to Black 41 Flash Reverse
*LIGHTS CUT OUT AND "Sirius" BY ALAN PARSONS PROJECT STARTS PLAYING*
What’s up Husker homies! I’m Jordan Fox, a lifelong Nebraska fan; former sports journalist/editor at places like the Omaha World-Herald, 247Sports, and others; and ex-junior college football coach (the MOST prestigious of all coaching positions).
I started this newsletter as a place to share my Husker football thoughts, particularly with a bent toward a scheme and analytics perspective. It seems as if there’s sometimes a big disconnect between the fanbase and what the coaches are trying to accomplish on the field (“WHY are there so many swing passes???”), and the goal here is to hopefully provide some answers or clarity to the Big Red faithful on why certain things might be happening or what may be changing from week-to-week. Some caveats: A lot of this is subjective, the cable TV feed isn’t always conducive to telling what a passing concept or defensive front is, and two years as a junior college G.A. does NOT make me the ultimate arbiter of what a football play is or isn’t. But there’s still a lot to be gained from looking into the advanced stats or charting the attainable elements of each game, like formations, play concepts, fronts, coverages, etc., and I hope to share those insights here and get them to fans in an interesting and enjoyable way.
I’ll be posting a weekly game breakdown newsletter, looking through the plays, details, and advanced stats to find the creative new concepts, subtle tweaks, or revealing trends that may be developing for the Huskers as the season progresses. But I also will drop in blogs, commentary, or interviews with cool NU-tangential people from time-to-time as I feel it’s relevant or warranted. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, go ahead and click the “Subscribe Now” button below to start having all of the newsletter’s content delivered straight to your e-mail inbox. And if this newsletter sounds like something a friend would also enjoy, don’t be stingy with a share, either!
Subscribing Gets You Perks — And It’s Free
While the weekly game breakdown and other posts will be available to everyone on the webpage, there are some perks you can only get by smashing that subscribe button: Not only does becoming an e-mail subscriber deliver all content straight to your e-mail inbox, it also gets you extra weekly post previewing the next week’s opponent that won’t be available to non-subscribers. And the best part: The extra perks are free; subscribing costs nothing! Here’s that subscribe button again:
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Beyond any writing, I’d also just like to build a fun, positive, and funny place to talk about our Huskers. No stodginess, no pessimism, no Back-In-My-Day-We-Were-In-The-Orange-Bowl-Every-Year nonsense — that’s not the vibe we’re going for here at all. This is an optimistic, friendly place to chop it up about the team we love, enjoy the fun parts of this fandom, and hopefully learn a few things about football. If you’ve got something to say about or add to any article, drop a comment underneath or shoot me an e-mail at black41flashreverse@substack.com and I’ll do my best to respond. Also let me know if there’s things you’d like to see more or less of as this progresses. And while I’ll be breaking down the games with my best serious face on, this is NOT an objective newsletter — I will be typing every newsletter while wearing my Eric Crouch jersey and corn head.
As always: If you like what you’re reading, a subscription sends every newsletter straight to your e-mail inbox and gets you extra content — for free! And if you can think of someone else who might enjoy this read, I’d appreciate a share. Otherwise, the first post looking at the common concepts of the offense ahead of the 2021 season is already up and can be found in the Archive feature of the menu — head on over and check it out now!
GBR
would love to see an oral history on the infamous eric crouch neck twist aka the worst face mask non-penalty of all time