Can a bad QB make a good team average?

POB and Gebbia have great H.S. numbers - probably as good as any QBs we've ever had in Lincoln. Perhaps we've never had one with any more potential in the passing game than both of these guys demonstrated in high school. But the college game is a big jump up in complexity, competition and pressure. Hopefully our QB position will retain atleast a modicum of run capability and avoids the rush and can buy some extra time half a dozen times a game as sacks are the one thing we rarely suffered from with Tommy and not too often with Taylor. But for every sack avoided, we had a pick or several incompletes which, ultimately end in failed drives and punts or turnovers. We need to be able to sustain drives by converting 3rd and short to medium. I would not be surprised if our conversion ratio for 3rd and 6 was no better than it was for 3rd and 13. When your success rate is about the same, it becomes tempting to throw even more as the short gains for 2 or 3 on first and second downs seem like a waste. Getting 'chunk' yardage gains as Riley likes to say are great but it is hard to be consistant in this. It is a good sign if you can get one or two between the 30s certainly but early on in a drive you need to 'earn' those first couple first downs the old fashioned way and then again when you get down into 4 down territory it is best, in my view, to power your way to the goal line. Four three yard gains move the chains and put TDs on the board while wearing down the opponent and burning up the game clock.

Big plays in the run game are great as they put the mental hurt on the opponent's psyche. Big plays in the pass game do as well but it is not the same in my view. Combine a strong running attack with a good short and intermediate passing complement and you have a champion in the making. There is nothing more frustrating to a defense than being pushed down the field by brute force.

 
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TA deserves a considerable amount of blame for the way some games turned out this season and others. The QB is without question the single most important position on the field, and you have to be great or elite in a lot of other areas if you want to make up for bad QB play.

But, TA was also single-handedly responsible for a lot of game changing moments in his career. I think he's also going to end his career as the total offense leader, and although he did start a ton of games, I don't think you get there by accident.

TA fits this saying better than most: he lives by the sword and dies by the sword.

 
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Tommy did not have a great year. However, placing all the blame on his shoulders gives a pass to some of the truly awful offensive line play this year, particularly on the interior.

 
LAblackshirt said:
NUance I don't disagree that he had great legs and was a great athlete. I disagree with the fact the oline caused his poor play. In watching the games even OSU and Iowa Tommy has time most plays. The plays he doesn't have time are in part because he has no concept of pocket presence and his only move is to roll out. Were he to have the presence of mind to step up in the pocket he could have much more success evadin over pursuing defenders.

Tommy was rated by PFF as the 2nd to worst Qb in the B1G, and let's be honest the B1G is not a good QB conference this year.
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I didn't see that ranking. But I'll bet he wasn't 2nd to worst QB overall. I'll bet it said he was our second to worst passer in the B1G. Is that right? And if that's the case it he probably deserves it. No one is saying Tommy is a good passer. He's not. He lacks touch on short passes. He's terrible at checking down. And he tries to squeeze the ball into small windows that he has no business throwing into. What I am saying is that, given our offensive line woes, Tommy did an admirable job of getting points on the board, despite the matador blocking from a couple of guys. Well, he got our offense to score except when we ran into the better B10 defenses that didn't allow him to run. That's all I'm saying.

What did PFF say about our offensive line? We have a couple of good blockers—Gates and Farmer. But we also had a couple of guys who struggled this year. It only takes one struggling blocker to bring down the O-line's effectiveness. It's like having a boat that is 80% leak free.

 
I think the fact that quarterback talent has a greater effect on the team's offensive performance than any other individual position is hardly debatable. Kind of a rhetorical question, IMO.

Look at the top 5 QB's for Passing Efficiency:

1 Baker Mayfield - Oklahoma

2 Logan Woodside - Toledo

3 Mike White - Western KY

4 Zach Terrell - Western Mich

5 Jake Browning - Washington

4 of the 5 teams performed FAR above their average roster talent, and Oklahoma's offense is one of the best in the country too.

 
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NUance here you go - https://www.profootballfocus.com/college-football-7-stats-to-know-about-the-undefeated-nebraska-cornhuskers/

That's correct, the rankings were passer rating. What's interesting is he was actually ranked the worst, and the rankings were when we were undefeated. This means at his best this season he was the worst Passer in one of the weaker Power 5 QB conferences. I think that illustrates even further how bad the QB situation was this year. 9 wins was a lot to ask and we got it.

 
Basically, Nebraska has seven consecutive seasons being led by the most statistically productive QBs in the program's history. Taylor Martinez was both a better runner and passer than Tommy Armstrong. Tommy had a lot of heart and fire and ended up with all the records. Hats off to them both. They will live on in plenty of highlight reel plays.

But I'm kinda ready to move on from the athlete at quarterback model. Dual threat quarterbacks will always be dangerous, but that passing threat simply has to be better than 51% in today's game. Passing is not an exotic skill -- it's what separates the QB from the RB, and a 62% completion rate is not too much to ask. That 62% passer doesn't mean you run an air raid offense. You can actually pass less with better efficiency and the run game generally benefits. If the QB can merely lumber 8 yards for an occasional first down he keeps the chains moving with his legs.

Did I mention the offensive line?

Everything works better with a dominant offensive line.

 
I see a lot of blame being put on Armstrong, and I agree that he was not a good passer, especially in B1G games. However, there was more to poor offense than just the QB play. The line was not good/depleted with injuries, which severely hampered the run game. Armstrong lost his best WR (Westerkamp), TE (Carter) for 3-4 games and 2 of his other WR's (Moore and Reilly) also missed games due to injury.

When Langsdorf pared down the offense so Tommy wouldn't throw as many INT's, it worked well at first, but it became too easy to scout and defend in conference play. Also, Armstrong made a lot of plays running the ball and scrambling that enabled NU to win games that it might not have without Tommy. I don't think NU beats Oregon without Tommy making huge plays in the run game, and he made some good plays against Indiana and Minnesota, as well.

It will be interesting to see how the offense goes next year and beyond. There will be definitely some give and take that will happen with the offense. I don't necessarily agree that the pass game opens up the run game, because a dual-threat QB can do the same thing. Now, a more accurate passer will probably enable improvement in the pass game, but teams will be able to keep another defender in coverage if they don't have to worry about the QB run game.

 
Colorado, yeah a lot of blame is being put on TA. This is because he was a quarterback who was a terrible passer. We aren't running the option like we used to, we run an offense that requires passing to be effective like most major programs in the NCAA power 5. He again should and will be a celebrated Husker for the rest of his days, but he was the biggest problem with our offense this year no doubt.

Your point is true though, Langsdorf really threw out a lot of the playbook to prevent the 5 interception games. That just illustrates to me more how hard it was to run an offense with Tommy as a QB. They made the playbook ultra vanilla and he finished one of the worst in completion percentage.

I'm with Langsdorf. If it's between a inept offense leaning on the defense or 5 interception games I have to go with the first option.

 
LAblackshirt said:
Colorado, yeah a lot of blame is being put on TA. This is because he was a quarterback who was a terrible passer. We aren't running the option like we used to, we run an offense that requires passing to be effective like most major programs in the NCAA power 5. He again should and will be a celebrated Husker for the rest of his days, but he was the biggest problem with our offense this year no doubt.

Your point is true though, Langsdorf really threw out a lot of the playbook to prevent the 5 interception games. That just illustrates to me more how hard it was to run an offense with Tommy as a QB. They made the playbook ultra vanilla and he finished one of the worst in completion percentage.

I'm with Langsdorf. If it's between a inept offense leaning on the defense or 5 interception games I have to go with the first option.
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I am going to say that the o-line was the weakest link on the offense this year, and the biggest reason it struggled, but that's just my opinion.

 
In fairness to the O-line, they generally gave Tommy enough time to throw, including the extra time required of those YOLO bombs. They also got push on the many successful fourth and short gambles. They just couldn't consistently generate holes for the RBs.

In fairness to Tommy, he wasn't that far off from being a great quarterback. I'm sure all his coaches were well aware of what he could do in practice and in the right game scenario. He may have been just four or five completions per game away from that greatness. But four seasons as a starter I think we saw the ceiling on his accuracy and decision-making. His legs couldn't win every game, but it would have been nice if he had stayed healthier.

 
Without Armstrong this year, our offensive stats look considerably worse. Did anyone watch Heisman play Houston this year? Heisman was sacked what 11 times? Heisman is a great athlete and escaped for most of the year, but he got drilled play after play against Houston. This is what Nebraska's offense would have looked like this year without Armstrong. The sheer amount of sacks and lost yardage from them would have been staggering. The coaches played and stuck with Armstrong because he gave us the best chance of winning. I'd say our OL play this year and for the last decade is what has made a good team look rather average. You could have substituted both Armstrong and Martinez for Frazier or Frost and we'd still have won a NC. Bad OL play makes QB play bad almost every time.

 
junior4949 said:
Without Armstrong this year, our offensive stats look considerably worse. Did anyone watch Heisman play Houston this year? Heisman was sacked what 11 times? Heisman is a great athlete and escaped for most of the year, but he got drilled play after play against Houston. This is what Nebraska's offense would have looked like this year without Armstrong. The sheer amount of sacks and lost yardage from them would have been staggering. The coaches played and stuck with Armstrong because he gave us the best chance of winning. I'd say our OL play this year and for the last decade is what has made a good team look rather average. You could have substituted both Armstrong and Martinez for Frazier or Frost and we'd still have won a NC. Bad OL play makes QB play bad almost every time.
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I'm not certain on this. TA didn't always need to scramble when he did. He often scrambled out of a good pocket.

I don't agree with replacing Frazier. His accuracy was bad but his decision making was great. TA's has often been horrid.

 
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