I think ALL of Nebraska's players need to get better. I'm more optimistic than most about Taylor because I already think he's pretty darn good, and most of the improvement needed is mental, not physical. As opposed to a guy like Rex, who is mentally as sharp as you're going to get, but may be more limited physically than some other RBs. (For example, I tend to think that Martinez's lack of 80 yard runs this year has less to do with him not being as explosive, and more to do with defenses not being worried that Rex Burkhead is going to go 80 yards the other way, like Roy Helu could).
I see people constantly say, "Well, we should get a QB who can do this or this or this." If we could come up with some hybrid clone of Peyton Manning and Michael Vick, I think those people would be happy. But there's no such thing as the perfect dual-threat QB, and in college, you can't just hire whoever you want. Right now, we have Martinez and Carnes, neither of whom are perfect.
I guess instead of wishing we had someone else, I try to look at the positives we had from QB play (of which there are many), and I realize that QB play was far from the issue that caused us to lose games this year. Shoddy defense, special teams implosions, and lack of discipline where much bigger problems than QB play. In addition, the offensive line, wide receivers, defensive line, and secondary were all position groups that were more inconsistent and more accurately the reason for our struggles this year than QB play. Why aren't there 3 billion threads about those issues?
I am not anti Martinez nor am I am in pro Martinez. I just find it odd that Nebraska is so afraid of a running QB that the DL will not rush the passer yet Nebraska's running QB rarely looks to scramble out of the pocket. This has to be due to coaching. I would also like to see Martinez run with more authority. If Martinez dives for the endzone in the citrus bowl I think he scores. Instead he steps out at the 8 yard line. This also has to be coaching. What happened to Nebraska never runs out of bounds and Nebraska QBs running over defenders?