In Thursday night’s season opener, the better part of America got a glimpse at what is a new facet of NIU’s football team: names on the back of the jerseys.

The names are just one change of the Huskies’ new threads they’ll sport all season. I don’t have a problem with the other changes, but I cannot condone names on the back of college jerseys.

I can understand wanting players to be easier to identify for TV and radio announcers, but it’s not like it’s a necessity. Some of the most storied football programs in the nation wouldn’t think to put names on the backs of their players: Penn State and USC are two that spring to mind. It also seems to fight against every team and their grandmother’s philosophy of team-first play.

The Huskies are no longer autonomous. They also don’t look as cool, which is clearly the issue at hand.