Surely you can't be serious. You're telling me you'd take Taylor over Crouch? Quit the drugs.
If you think Crouch would be as good with this offensive line, you're on harder drugs than the people who would take Martinez over Crouch. That's why it's impossible to say. It's definitely not "crazy," but maybe a little weird, to prefer Martinez. It's not weird at all to think he has the potential to be better.
The simple fact of the matter is neither one of them should be considered a QB anymore. Crouch is probably the most gifted athletic talent that has ever played QB at Nebraska. The unfortunate part, much like Taylor, is that their skill sets don't match that of a successful QB anymore.
Crouch would have been successful at any DB or offensive skill position. Taylor.....maybe.
The problem I have with that argument is that it's the same thing people said when Crouch was QB. And when Frost was QB. And when Frazier was QB. It's been proven wrong over and over again, which you'd think would make it invalid, yet people keep arguing it.
Your logic is flawed. You are assuming that the game doesn't change or evolve. Given your example, I really don't see why anyone isn't arguing that we start to look for a Jerry Tagge clone.
Where has it been proven wrong? Since Crouch won the Heisman, where has a purely running QB been successful. I would actually rather take step back because Miami absolutely destroyed the Huskers. Since Frost won the NC in 1997, where has a pure running (Run First - Sub par passing) QB been successful?
There may be an example, I just don't recall it. That's almost 15 years ago. So again, where has it been proven wrong?
So in your mind, a player has to win a national championship in order to be successful?
So, I guess Sam Bradford wasn't successful. Neither was Colt McCoy. Kellen Moore blows. Andrew Luck hasn't been successful either. Kirk Cousins is no good.
Derek Carr, Keith Price, and Brett Smith must REALLY suck, because they're not getting anywhere close to a national championship this year.
Bad play on my part because I knew you would take it there. Let me change it up for you.
Give me a QB that can run well and can't throw that has been successful in the last 5 years. I would say successful would be top 10, maybe top 15. Since this appears to be an acceptable recipe for success, you shouldnt have any trouble naming several.
I don't even know why I argue with you. Last year you called me out after three games when I said "Who cares when Will Compton comes back, LaVonte David should never leave the field".
I don't remember the Compton/David argument, but clearly I was wrong, seeing as how Compton hasn't been a starter or anything since he came back from that injury... If I argued that David should be off the field, obviously I was wrong there, but I don't remember.
As far as other QBs in the past 5 years, the part that I don't buy is the notion that Taylor is much worse than some of the other dual-threat QBs. Martinez is basically on par with Darron Thomas in my honest opinion, so there's one top 15 team. I think he's on par with Denard Robinson, but by your top 10-15 standard, he doesn't meet your requirement of what it is to be a successful QB.
More than anything else, I take issue with your definition of what a successful QB is. Your definition of QB success is directly opposed to the original point of this thread, which says that the QBs we've faced this year are all better than Martinez. By your definition of QB success (winning), Martinez is a better QB than any of those guys.
By your definition of sucess, Martinez could lead Nebraska to 30 points in every game the rest of the season, but if 4 of our opponents manage to score 31, Martinez would then become a failure as a QB.
All I can say right now is that Martinez has been a successful QB so far this year. I think that anyone who argues against that is focusing too much on the mistakes he makes without giving him credit for the great plays that he makes. I'm still waiting to see what Martinez does against a top ten team like Wisconsin (and I'll reiterate that I don't think we're ready on offense or defense as an entire team to play Wisconsin) to get a real feel for where he is right now, but even if he struggles against a top 10 team, I'm not going to rush to the conclusion that he can never win a big game, like others on this board surely will.
Furthermore, I think that anybody who simply looks at the other QBs we've played and jumps to the conclusion that they'd be better for us than Martinez is over-simplifying the game. Sure, Keith Price might have completed that pass to Jamal Turner over the middle yesterday. But Jamal Turner might not have even been open with Keith Price at QB, because he's not a threat to tuck the ball and take it to the end zone like Martinez is. If Martinez does improve a bit more, and becomes even a little more accurate (which is within the realm of possibility, seeing as how he's a sophomore), then our offense becomes impossible to defend. Right now, the only way to stop our offense is to sell out on the run and hope that Martinez misses a wide open receiver.
