Undone

Exactly. Frost gives him an offer and he de-commits from playing in his home state of Hawaii to move to Florida. As just a true Sophomore you saw what Frost & Verduzco can do with a quarterback. The flashes of brilliance from Martinez have already been seen. With an offensive line that has some more focus and intensity this offense is going to very likely be excellent next season. It could even be excellent by the end of this season.

I think we both know the answer to that question, my friend.

Here's the thing about your potential theory, OP - Even if that were the case with Milton, Adrian Martinez looks to be all that Milton was and more. Martinez was a more highly recruited kid whose Junior year highlight reel is pretty insane. Verduzco is in a position to do the very same thing with Martinez. You put Maurice Washington in the mix. You return Spielman, Williams, and Lindsey, and Greg Bell. Those are even better offensive weapons in my opinion at the skill positions than UCF had. Next year is the year. It's as if this fan base has gone so long without a good quarterback that we've forgotten how much it means to success.

I'd tend to agree with that. The problem, as stated several times now, seems to be too much thinking or second-guessing about where to go, instead of just staying in position and then crashing to the ball as the play develops. And I don't blame these Bob Diaco-coached guys if there's still some of that crap in their heads about how to play to the ball. But...if some nobody like me can see these trends, I'm just hoping that the coaches will put someone else in there for Purdue to see if we can at least see some improvement. Because it just almost can't be worse than the last 7ish minutes against Troy and all of the game against Michigan.

It's just going to make it all the sweeter when we're back to playing Top 10 football.

My main observation is that this isn't what he did at UCF, and I think we'd probably agree the route he went with them paid off. He did say that he dialed the playbook down to 80% that first year, but that seemed to have been about it in terms of simplification. In one year he got a good quarterback recruit in there as a true freshman to a place where he and the entire offense was just deadly in 2017. I believe he's doing the same here with Martinez. In other words, as painful as this is for fans, Frost, and the players themselves, this seems to be his blueprint he used at UCF. I'm not too worried.

The bolded.

I agree with that and stated that in the posts above. What you coach your linebackers to do in the 3-4 in a run-heavy conference is important, though. Very important. Talent isn't necessarily the issue, and I think the dissection of just those two plays above shows that. It's what's going on between the ears of a couple of players that's especially bad right now. *Edit - Add "effort" to the list, too.

I gotcha. That's a pretty bold theory and would be a new low for Husker football. Charlie McBride would probably whip a guy's *** into the next area code for such a thing.

So if you're Chinander, you pull Young out and put Honas in, IMO. Because it just almost can't be any worse than what you see in those two plays. This kind of stuff is potentially fixable right now. There are a couple of guys on defense that are obviously "really good in practice" but just make mental mistakes in live game time.

Here's their second touchdown. Same play: Looks like Alex Davis is in to create a four man front on the right. Which I like a lot. And the I believe I see Caleb Tannor as a fifth guy on the left edge of our line. They have a six man front. More mindless play from Young. He casually steps to his left and bumps into Barry. Barry - actually reading the play well - tries to get over to make a play Young should have made in the first place. Seriously...so depressing.

Statistically, the favorite wins greater than 51% of the time. It's the odds of that team winning. So logically, it's relevant when discussing the odds of your team winning the game.

A big part of UCF's 13-0 season in my opinion was McKenzie Milton. And Frost & Verduzco get all of the credit for not only bringing him in but developing his talent. He finished 8th in the Heisman voting last year. I think Adrian Martinez is that guy and that's one of the big reasons I'm preemptively excited about where our program is heading. Add Maurice Washington to that list, too.

If I see Martinez march out onto the field from the tunnel walk wearing a soft brace instead of a hard brace, I'm going to say Purdue. I think if he's healthy he'll come into that game with a mission to light it up. If it's a bit of a crippled playbook because he's still somewhat injured, I think Purdue has the upper hand, in which I'd go with Northwestern.

Agreed here. And this is why I won't be surprised if we loom considerably better by season's end.

Reread that sentence. It doesn't make any sense. Inflation infers expecting too much. You just described expecting too little.

So in terms of raw talent, are we: -Much less talented than Purdue -Slightly less talented than Purdue -Equally as talented as Purdue -Slightly more talented than Purdue -Much more talented that Purdue ?? I'd go with 'slightly more talented than Purdue.' But will Purdue allow itself to get blown out this season? We'll see. And we'll see how we actually play against them this weekend.

Aaron Williams, but that's probably his assignment. Seems like Young is supposed to protect that gap...but gets himself out of position by basically lurching forward into a space where nobody is before the play really even starts developing.

I think you're focusing too much on the coach speak that Frost gives to the media. It's as if there's a huge portion of the fan base that can't distinguish between a healthy level of confidence mixed with coach speak and taking what a coach says as gospel. It's a weird phenomenon. If you've let what Frost says inflate your expectations, isn't that on you?

I'm not sure that actually makes sense. The teams that consistently finish in the top 10-15 in national recruiting rankings usually are ranked somewhere in that range by seasons' end. I totally agree that we have a definite talent disadvantage against Michigan...but not to the degree that we should be down 39-0 at halftime. They didn't even put up 56 against Western Michigan and SMU...who rank unbelievably lower than we do in national recruiting rankings. Losing 56-10 was honestly pretty surprising. I realize a lot of people are still emotional from that shellacking yesterday and are saying that it wasn't surprising...but the level of talent we have on defense should not have allowed them to put up 39 points in the first half. There are things that are fixable even this season to correct some of the issues we have. I don't believe we have the talent level of Western Michigan or SMU...that's honestly a ridiculous notion.

I'm trying to understand the point you were trying to make with those two sentences. Here are our last five seasons' recruiting rankings according to 247: 2014 --#35 2015 -- #30 2016 -- #26 2017 -- #23 2018 -- #23 This may not be the only way to evaluate "talent," but defining talent is hard. This is a fairly objective way to do it. We shouldn't be as bad as we are against the run. I'm much less worried about the offense because Martinez is a true freshman and he's injured. If Chinander is a good defensive coach - and there's good evidence that suggests that he is - this team should see some significant improvement by the end of the season. I have quite a bit of faith that it can.

Yeah. And I'm not saying that Chinander shouldn't have brought his 3-4 scheme to Lincoln. Not saying that at all. The Patriots have played a lot of 3-4 in the past several years and there are many parallels there; the NFL is pretty much nothing but downhill running, similar to how the B1G is mainly downhill running. Bo would always make it sound like his linebackers and corners had to do a calculus equation prior to the snap in order to know where to play to. Again, when I watch just an average Big 10 team's defense playing that's not what I see happening. It's more "zone" in nature. And this makes sense in a downhill running conference (with the exception of some of Ohio State's zone read offense, etc.). I'm pretty interested in seeing how many rushing yards and points Michigan puts up against Northwestern this weekend.

I rarely create threads but wanted a discussion around this particular topic. Here we are again. Michigan blocked and executed well yesterday; I think they have to get credit there for sure. But here's their first play from scrimmage on offense: Yes, I realize that we edge blitzed and that it was a bit unlucky there because then there's one less guy in the flat for run support. But seriously...there's Dedrick Young again. Biting into a spot where nothing is happening. Looking flat-footed. And then just jogging towards the play (at first) when he thinks the guy is past him and that somebody else will make the tackle. Then he speeds up...but it's too late. This is pretty much the same formation that we were lined up in on Troy's last two plays where not having three linebackers between the hashes is risky. So they found this play that just zips through the B gap. And then they did it over and over and humiliated us with it. I've asked this question of anyone that will listen now for 5+ seasons - Why can't we look at the film of what every other team in the top half of the conference does on defense to stop the run and emulate that? When I watch Purdue, for example, I see a team who coaches their linebackers to stay in position in the center of the field. This is a run-centric conference, after all. And Michigan is a run-first, hit-you-with-play-action team. I don't claim to know more than Chinander and Frost about drawing up a defense. But I can watch the film and see what's happening. If we don't do something different against Wisconsin, they will do the same thing. This is partially a scheme issue and not just an effort issue (but there are some guys on defense where effort is a problem).

Here are a couple of true statements that are hopefully helpful in assessing where our offense is without being accused of "making excuses": 1. Adrian Martinez is a true freshman that technically hasn't played one full game of football while being 100% healthy. 2. Frost's offense relies on a truly dual-threat quarterback. Now, on to some opinions and some guesses: -If he doesn't get hurt against Colorado, the odds of us holding the lead we had were probably extremely high. -If he plays against Troy, we win that game. -If he's 100% against Michigan, we see more variety of plays from him in the first quarter. The thing I'm most worried about right now is some especially bad/not smart play by the defense at times against the run. It's as if at some in the middle of the 4th quarter against Troy the stout run defense we had seen for the past 7.5 quarters just went out the window.

I lol'd, @Landlord. "Landlord's Theses: A Meta-Commentary on Huskerboard Threads."