The University of Nebraska is one of the most storied footballing colleges in the USA. The Cornhuskers have worn their famous scarlet-and-cream uniform, with the scarlet ‘N' on the helmets, since 1890. They boast five national Division 1 championships and have the best winning record of any Division 1 football program over the last 50 years, both by winning percentage and number of wins. 

The ‘Huskers are particularly famous for their defence. The university is a renowned recruiter of defensive players, which it churns out the other end to the NFL. Nebraska plays a style based on fast, tough defensive linemen ‘blitzing' the quarterback, uncompromising linebackers chopping down the running backs and fantastically athletic cornerbacks swarming all over the opposition's wide receivers. They have made Memorial Stadium in Lincoln into a fortress and a graveyard for opposing offences.

Since 1960, as a result of what was initially a purchasing mistake, the first-string defensive unit has trained during the week in black jerseys. (The second string wears red, and the offensive players wear white.) Over the fifty years since then, the tradition has developed of the Nebraska Blackshirts. To play as a starter on the defensive line for Nebraska, and wear the black jerseys and the black skull-and-crossbones on the helmets in practice, is to represent and be custodian of a long and famous tradition that demands adherence to extremely high standards.

But all dynasties fade, and Nebraska slipped from its lofty pedestal in recent years, particularly since the retirement of the legendary Tom Osborne, who coached the team from 1973 to 1997. To be fair to his successors, college football has changed a lot in recent years: high-school footballers prefer the warmer weather of southern California and Florida and Louisiana, and the mid-west no longer has the pulling power that it did. In this decade Nebraska has struggled to be the powerhouse that its fans expect as their birthright.

Gradually, standards started to slip, and Nebraska began to suffer some previously unthinkable drubbings. In 2007, the once-mighty Huskers defence was torched for 76 points by longtime doormat Kansas, and for 65 points by equally lowly Colorado. Osborne was brought back as athletic director and coach Bill Callahan was fired, replaced by Bo Pelini, a former Blackshirts leader, as defensive co-ordinator at Nebraska.

But that is not all that Osborne did.

After the thrashing at the hands of Kansas, Osborne ordered that the black jerseys be put away. If the defence was not going to play up to the standards of the Blackshirt tradition, they could not wear them.

I'm almost there with the baggy green cap. 

I've thought this way since that appalling night at The Oval in August 2009, when the much-vaunted Australian batting line-up collapsed like a blancmange and forever convinced Stuart Broad that he had their measure. I still can't get over the embarrassing spectacle of our team leaders taunting England with accusations of the very frailties that we subsequently displayed in bucketloads.

This was of course after having to watch Johnson spray it around The Oval worse than at Lord's, which meant that protective fields had to be spread, so that four an over didn't become six an over. Do you remember - or have you thankfully repressed it so deep in your memory that it would need a jab of truth serum to have it ever brought back into the light and addressed - seeing Jonathan Trott being eased into Test cricket with a half-hour of gathering singles at will?

Every England batsman got this orientation period. We couldn't test Trott - or anyone else - adequately because the attack was fatally compromised, as it was all series in 2009, by inaccuracy, carelessness and leaking runs.

The saying goes that you're only as good as your last game. Well, if that's true, England is miles better than us and deserves to start this series as favourite.

About the only thing that fills me with any confidence is the perverse thought that the English go in as favourite. They may not be on the betting sites - which unaccountably have Australia as favourite - but in their own heads they will be. And that is a new thing. 

It doesn't matter that the English press expects them to win, that the Barmy Army expect them to win: they expect to win. Let's see how they handle that.

The other change I want to see is to the statistics that make cricket such an endearing game. I want to see an asterisk used next to players' averages, that would denote another average, adjusted to represent what the player did when it mattered - when it was hard going, and application and tenacity meant more than easy times racking up runs and wickets against the West Indies or New Zealand. Runs and wickets would be weighted to reflect the degree of difficulty surrounding the circumstances in which they were made or taken. Some sort of loading would be applied to account for situations that required courage and the steel to dig deep enough to be able to strike the solid bedrock of purpose.

And the corollary to that is that any runs made in the kind of debacle that we saw at The Oval would not be counted in that person's career. Nor would four wickets to finally close out the free-swinging lark of a tailenders' picnic that should have ended 100 runs ago.

I propose that the team is asked to play for a while in yellow caps - at least until they regain The Ashes. Nothing else ever seems to sink into these players about accountability, pride, professional self-respect and what it means to represent a nation of cricket followers.

All of us who sat up late 15 months ago, night after bleary night, these guys owe us. Starting Thursday.

In 2008, the Nebraska Blackshirts won back the right to wear their treasured practice jerseys. This year, at 9-2 and ranked 16th, they won't win the title but they should feature in a respectable bowl game. But at least, as Nebraskans walk into Memorial Stadium or settle down in front of their televisions for a new season, they know that win or lose, the requisite pride that they demand from their representatives will be shown, and victory over them will be hard-won. 

We should be so lucky.