Adrian Martinez

I think it’s ok to acknowledge that AM has played very well this year outside the Illinois game while also acknowledging he had some pretty big deficiencies the last few years in games while racking up yards (becaus the offense revolves around the QB position). Both can true. 

 
Archy1221 said:
@Guy Chamberlin was pretty spot on.  I do think some folks keep forgetting AM got benched last year when talking about how great he played. 
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The benching was a knee-jerk reaction to one too many forced throws IMO. He played fairly well against OSU, and picked right back up playing well when he got in against Illinois. His numbers against NW were pretty bad, but they held a lot of QBs to ugly lines all year. If you like QBR, he actually played a lot better against NW last year than against Illinois this year, for example. 

There's always going to be some subjectivity here for sure, but I don't agree with people lumping his Soph/Junior years together and then saying this year is wildly different. He was playing pretty darn well last year. He has been another step up this year, but the difference between 2019 > 2020 was greater than the difference between 2020 > 2021 IMO. In the end all that matters is he's playing really well right now - gotta clean up a few overthrows per game and I'll really have nothing to critique.

 
Husker in WI said:
The benching was a knee-jerk reaction to one too many forced throws IMO. He played fairly well against OSU, and picked right back up playing well when he got in against Illinois. His numbers against NW were pretty bad, but they held a lot of QBs to ugly lines all year. If you like QBR, he actually played a lot better against NW last year than against Illinois this year, for example. 

There's always going to be some subjectivity here for sure, but I don't agree with people lumping his Soph/Junior years together and then saying this year is wildly different. He was playing pretty darn well last year. He has been another step up this year, but the difference between 2019 > 2020 was greater than the difference between 2020 > 2021 IMO. In the end all that matters is he's playing really well right now - gotta clean up a few overthrows per game and I'll really have nothing to critique.
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Frost and Verduzco pretty much said this over the summer, when they said they benched him for the 3rd quarter INT against Northwestern.  Then Luke came in and moved the ball fairly well, but still had the same red-zone issues that Martinez did against Northwestern.  Basically, Frost didn't have much respect for Northwestern and blamed that loss on Adrian.  After that game, Northwestern that they had a great defense, created problems for QB's all season and Adrian's numbers were among the best numbers put up against Northwestern last year, including Justin Fields' performance in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Now, sitting Adrian against Penn State and most of Illinois may have enabled him to get his head straight and a better focus on what he can control, but it may have cost NU the Illinois game, as Luke played very poorly in that game, and Adrian had shown a strong history against Illinois in 2018 and 2019.

 
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ColoradoHusk said:
Frost and Verduzco pretty much said this over the summer, when they said they benched him for the 3rd quarter INT against Northwestern.  Then Luke came in and moved the ball fairly well, but still had the same red-zone issues that Martinez did against Northwestern.  Basically, Frost didn't have much respect for Northwestern and blamed that loss on Adrian.  After that game, Northwestern that they had a great defense, created problems for QB's all season and Adrian's numbers were among the best numbers put up against Northwestern last year, including Justin Fields' performance in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Now, sitting Adrian against Penn State and most of Illinois may have enabled him to get his head straight and a better focus on what he can control, but it may have cost NU the Illinois game, as Luke played very poorly in that game, and Adrian had shown a strong history against Illinois in 2018 and 2019.
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Pretty much this.  We were struggling.  And for whatever reason they were REALLY pissed about that INT.  Luke went in and looked OK.  With how the season was going, it was pretty much "Well, we have to try SOMETHING." so they started Luke the next game.  But it's pretty obvious it wasn't because Luke was the better QB.

 
Mavric said:
Pretty much this.  We were struggling.  And for whatever reason they were REALLY pissed about that INT.  Luke went in and looked OK.  With how the season was going, it was pretty much "Well, we have to try SOMETHING." so they started Luke the next game.  But it's pretty obvious it wasn't because Luke was the better QB.
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Frost didn't do Martinez many favors by continually saying that Luke was "very close" to Adrian, and Luke became a fan-favorite, while Adrian became the scapegoat for the team's struggles.  In small doses, Luke showed glimpses of being a good QB, so Frost was thinking what you show above.  Unfortunately over a larger sample of snaps, Luke showed that he wasn't as good as Adrian, and Luke wasn't willing to change positions to stay at NU.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Frost didn't do Martinez many favors by continually saying that Luke was "very close" to Adrian, and Luke became a fan-favorite, while Adrian became the scapegoat for the team's struggles.  In small doses, Luke showed glimpses of being a good QB, so Frost was thinking what you show above.  Unfortunately over a larger sample of snaps, Luke showed that he wasn't as good as Adrian, and Luke wasn't willing to change positions to stay at NU.
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Makes sense- however how much of that may have been posturing? In 2019 Martinez had no competition- he gained a bunch of weight and by any reasonable metric he regressed. So you create some competition, real or imagined.  No one I knew- that knew anything about football was thinking Luke would be an improvement over AM at the QB spot. 

Secondly we all know Luke was a daddy ball QB, great athlete but no College QB. Maybe part of the strategy was to build Luke up a bit to get him to stick around- in another capacity. 

 
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Nebraska55fan said:
Secondly we all know Luke was a daddy ball QB, great athlete but no College QB. Maybe part of the strategy was to build Luke up a bit to get him to stick around- in another capacity. 
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Not trying to sidetrack the conversation too much away from Adrian, but I wonder how big of recruits would Dylan and Luke McCaffrey would have been if their last name was McReynolds.  Obviously they had great bloodlines, and Christian has an amazing college and NFL career (along with another brother who was a WR at Duke), but history has shown that Dylan and Luke weren't as good as players as their older brothers.  Throw in the fact those 2 played QB for their dad at the top high school in Colorado, there were challenges to honestly evaluate Dylan and Luke in the recruiting process.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Not trying to sidetrack the conversation too much away from Adrian, but I wonder how big of recruits would Dylan and Luke McCaffrey would have been if their last name was McReynolds.  Obviously they had great bloodlines, and Christian has an amazing college and NFL career (along with another brother who was a WR at Duke), but history has shown that Dylan and Luke weren't as good as players as their older brothers.  Throw in the fact those 2 played QB for their dad at the top high school in Colorado, there were challenges to honestly evaluate Dylan and Luke in the recruiting process.
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I think they could have been very good if they were willing to be something other than a QB like Christian.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Not trying to sidetrack the conversation too much away from Adrian, but I wonder how big of recruits would Dylan and Luke McCaffrey would have been if their last name was McReynolds.  Obviously they had great bloodlines, and Christian has an amazing college and NFL career (along with another brother who was a WR at Duke), but history has shown that Dylan and Luke weren't as good as players as their older brothers.  Throw in the fact those 2 played QB for their dad at the top high school in Colorado, there were challenges to honestly evaluate Dylan and Luke in the recruiting process.
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As you know= Luke never really played a lot of QB until his senior year. Great body control and burst but never a QB. Loved getting brothers- lot of them played like each other so yep, the bloodlines do matter. Lowers your risk a bit. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
I think they could have been very good if they were willing to be something other than a QB like Christian.
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I won't speak for Dylan because I don't know his body of work as well, but Luke probably would be getting significant reps in the slot had he committed to receiver. Hell, that might've been his 80 yard TD this weekend instead of Betts'. 

 
Mavric said:
No, I guess we can't all agree on that.  Regressed?  The production wasn't as good so in that way, yes.  But not nearly as much as people wanted to claim. 
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I'm saying it wasn't  merely "people" claiming Adrian Martinez had regressed. Adrian Martinez and Scott Frost acknowledged it. People who know their football noticed it. The regression seemed to revolve around the intangible of decision-making; the open receiver overlooked, the wide-open field ignored, the awkward fumble, the unforced errors that often plagued this team. The confidence, which again, Martinez and Frost openly talked about.

The discussion has always revolved around AM rediscovering the confidence and talent he showed his Freshman year.  Especially by people who are rooting for him.

I'm not talking about the worst of the haters. They live to take down anyone. Just saying Adrian had to earn his turnaround the same as every Husker on this team since the Illinois game. Pretty sure Adrian would agree. Right now it's a good story. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I'm saying it wasn't  merely "people" claiming Adrian Martinez had regressed. Adrian Martinez and Scott Frost acknowledged it. People who know their football noticed it. The regression seemed to revolve around the intangible of decision-making; the open receiver overlooked, the wide-open field ignored, the awkward fumble, the unforced errors that often plagued this team. The confidence, which again, Martinez and Frost openly talked about.

The discussion has always revolved around AM rediscovering the confidence and talent he showed his Freshman year.  Especially by people who are rooting for him.

I'm not talking about the worst of the haters. They live to take down anyone. Just saying Adrian had to earn his turnaround the same as every Husker on this team since the Illinois game. Pretty sure Adrian would agree. Right now it's a good story. 
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But the numbers from last year show he hadn't regressed since his Freshman year, which is what many were claiming.  He was actually significantly better.  The overall results seemed worse but that doesn't mean that he was worse.  It's easy to focus on the negative when people are unhappy with the overall results.  The objective measures don't tell the same story.

And none of that can take into account how it can be differentiated that it wasn't largely caused by the lack of weapons around him.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Adrian Martinez regressed after his freshman year. In ways that can't all be blamed on the talent around him.

We saw it with our own eyes. Every college football observer, Heisman balloteer, and NFL handicapper saw it, too. 

Most importantly, Scott Frost and Adrian Martinez both fully acknowledged that Adrian lost some of his confidence, and that seemed to affect his decision-making. The haters weren't making this up. HC Scott Frost replaced a healthy Martinez with Luke McCaffrey last year.
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What I will say though is Frost let it out after the Iowa game in 2019 that he had been playing with a shoulder injury. We don't entirely know for how long, if memory serves - but that had to have played a factor.

So, losing Stanley Morgan (who drew double teams) and having the injury surely accounted for a sizable chunk of the drop-off.

But I mean like, his stats regressed. That is true:





2018


Nebraska


Big Ten


FR


QB


11


224


347


64.6


2617


7.5


7.5


17


8


139.5











2019


Nebraska


Big Ten


SO


QB


10


149


251


59.4


1956


7.8


7.0


10


9


130.8










 
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