When students streaming through the gates of Byrd Stadium tonight receive T-shirts for the blackout, they will have Chevy Chase Bank to thank.

At tonight’s Terrapin football game against West Virginia, the third-annual blackout of a home game, free black T-shirts will be distributed by the Athletics Department to the first 5,000 students who arrive at the stadium.

The Student Government Association promoted the idea for the Virginia Tech Thursday night game during the 2005 season and executed it with the help of the athletics department. The department worked with student groups in the past to spread the word, including the SGA traditions committee, Byrd’s 11 and the Red Army, said Brian Ullman, a spokesman for the department.

This season, the department worked with Chevy Chase Bank to provide the shirts and promote the event. Chevy Chase Bank bought the naming rights to Byrd Stadium in August 2006.

Students organized blackouts of games against Virginia Tech in 2005 and Florida State in 2006 for night games in which the Terps wore black jerseys. Ullman said coach Ralph Friedgen has the final say on which jerseys the team wears.

“I don’t know yet,” Friedgen said Monday when asked about the possibility. “That’s the least of my worries right now. I think that’s an easy decision one way or another.”

Despite not knowing the team’s plans on the jerseys, the Terrapin Ticket Office sent out an e-mail to ticketholders Monday night informing them of the blackout.

“Don’t forget that this Thursday’s game versus the Mountaineers is a BLACK OUT, so make sure to BE LOUD and WEAR BLACK,” the e-mail said.

Junior government and politics major Mark Jubar said the ticket office website announced the blackout earlier that day. Jubar created a Facebook group to promote the blackout in response to what he called confusion among students.

“I didn’t think people knew it was a blackout,” Jubar said. “I made the group, then two hours later, [the ticket office] sent the e-mail.”

Jubar’s group, Byrd Blackout 2007, attracted 1,277 members as of 12:15 a.m. this morning. A similar group, Terps Blackout 07, had 1016 members at that time.

Jubar did not expect the immediate response to his group.

“I did it just for fun,” Jubar said. “I did it Monday at 9 a.m., and it just blew up. I was pretty impressed.”

While Jubar and thousands of other students will wear black to the game, fans will need to wait until the Terps take the field to see if Friedgen decides to use the black jerseys.

However, junior receiver Danny Oquendo hinted Tuesday at another possibility for the Terps’ uniforms.

“We’ve been asking for black pants for a while.”

sports@dbk.umd.edu