Knoxville Husker

I think one thing we learned was the value of having some “patsies” on the schedule to get some confidence and Ws under our belts. I know they are not as easy to find as they used to be, but we don’t need to apologize for anything as I see even mighty ‘Bama plays Mercer next week. Hopefully Frost has learned to trust his eyes a little better. Stepp looked to me the much more fluid runner last week and I think he’s listed at 6’ 1” 230. How he wasn’t the starter from the get go puzzles me. While it’s water under the bridge now, maybe we are 2-0 if we’d featured Stepp against the Illini. I REALLY want Frost to work out and to me that was fubar but otherwise I think we can still get better each week and win our share of B1G games this year. I consider anything but the OSU game as ones we should have a decent chance to win. Toure is the real deal, we are deep on offensive skill positions and across the entire defense. OK I’ll take off my rose colored glasses but with them on I see a team that could be pretty good. Also we were reminded that that season is not over after week one, LOL.

I’m with you on the power running game but I can’t take bad a$$ d with no O again. Still remember when we had Suh and one of the best Ds in school history and the worst offense that I can recall in 40 years as a fan.

Thanks for this. I've already moved on because Tommy is a Husker who came from Texas as a state champion to play QB for us. Texas came knocking too late and he didn't give them the time of day. They thought his 5 star RB was carrying the team, but it was really Tommy running the show as we found out his senior year when the RB was gone (another trip to state championship game). Lucky for us his dad must have really liked NU and encouraged him to take a hard look at us. Why are NU fans having a hard time taking to him? Loyalty, I get it but it's time to get loyal to Tommy!

It's fine to disagree but it's the way you are doing it as evidenced by this post. Your baiting folks and should stop. I agree that TA is the leader the team seems to most want to follow, and that is a big deal in a game of motivation and emotion. May not extend to the punter, but I can definitely see the defense being more fired up by how the offense is being led.

Normally I would agree, but I think in this case the only additional preparation is caused by TA's option abilities. I think it's been a minority (that by now has shrunken greatly) that ever thought RKIII should start, possibly confused by TA's int binge.

OK I think we have a consensus! TA is the man for the rest of the season. RKIII comes in for spot relief as needed should TA falter. TM gets the bowl if healthy to reward his great career. I'm going to add here: this thread from here on is based on the assumption of an unhealthy Martinez until the bowl game. If someone wants to debate 100% healthy TM vs. TA (who may not be 100% himself), feel free to start a thread for that as it's become really tiresome to hear about.

Good comments, I was thinking in terms of how to manage the two (healthy) QB rotation going forward rather than inciting the side debate that followed (wow). I hope we'll see the "hot hand" approach, I think this staff tries to script things out a bit too much as evidenced by a tendency to appear outcoached during games, even when it comes to simple adjustments. I think for going on ten years now I've been saying attack on defense and run more option, LOL.

I thought I saw a replay set for 11/11 or 11/12 I'm guessing BTN hope you get it. If not, check ESPN I think they also may be replaying it.

Thank you for the genuine discussion, rather than some of the responses from the blind TM pumpers. I wasn't even looking to discuss Martinez in this thread, this is an Armstrong thread to celebrate what he pulled off and looking forward to a bright future. I purposely did not make mention of TM, but it was amazing how his unwavering defenders grasped for any little excuse to come out of the woodwork and vigorously defend a guy I didn't even want to discuss. I have no idea why we'd want to keep bringing up and pining for a guy who ended his career breaking his toes kicking a locker, when we have Tommy. So please if you are STILL a Martinez pumper, start a thread for that or relocate to an existing one and keep it over there. Back directly on topic, we had 130 yards in the first quarter and were up 10-0. That's a 500-yard pace on offense. Then the switch to RKIII, when Tommy had us in a groove. Bad move, it took Tommy and the offense a long time to recapture that groove. I'm not buying the assertion that Tommy had a bad game at all, with such a big personnel gaffe a highly likely contributor. With the ultra conservative game plan and him missing a full quarter, I thought he did exactly what we wanted which was get us 17 points and not turn the ball over.

Winning a game in East Lansing is not even close to being on par with winning at Ann Arbor, especially when the "heroics" followed a 3 int performance. Our first two years in the Big 10 we played at Madison, Columbus, and Ann Arbor and were routed by an average of 31 points. This thread is about moving on, not dwelling (or should we say clinging) to the past.

Throughout Husker Nation the realization that Tommy is by far our most talented QB has been amazingly slow. If you were still in doubt, what say you now after he led he game winning 75-yard TD drive in the hostile environment of the biggest football stadium in the world??! Those of us clamoring for him to dominate snaps since the UCLA game are clearly vindicated. We weren't just a bunch of martians or disloyal rogue NU fans, but rather based the belief on his body of work in big-time Texas HS football. Pelini finally made a correct pivotal decision and it may have saved his job. Sticking to the script of playing RKIII the entire second quarter when TA was clearly the hot hand was painful to watch, killing all our momentum and almost costing us the game. Fortunately he made the right decision in the second half and we walked away with a huge W and avoided wasting an awesome game by the Blackshirts. I agree with the poster on the other TA thread that he's not quite right on the QB runs and it is probably a small remnant of his knee injury. The plus side of that is his best is obviously yet to come, and doing what he did today takes nerves of steel. He just oozed the "it" factor that sets the tone for the entire team. No other QB on our roster makes that pitch play for the TD, or leads that game winning drive. EDIT: This is not a Taylor Martinez thread. This thread is based on the assumption that TM is not 100% until the bowl game.

I was ok with rkii getting in but with ta playing well not for all of q2. clearly a script that should have been modified.

It has seemed pretty silly to me to run an inconsistent up tempo offense when you badly need to keep your defense off the field. Seems we are playing right into the other teams' hands at times.

This is really funny because you just said Beck needs to simplify the offense which we know won't happen!

Every single unnecessary roughness penalty for a hit on player should be reviewed and overturnable. That's the only way this can be fixed, aside from stop calling them which does not seem likely. Due to the speed of the game there is just no way to call these accurately in real time, we've seen it time and time again and even "just" a 15-yard penalty is very costly. From there use some version of the NBA's flagrant 1 or flagrant 2 system, two flagrant 1s or one flagrant 2 an get you ejected. Tackling a ball carrier should never get you a flagrant 2, nor should blocking a player who's just not paying good enough attention. Defenseless WRs going for passes or where a ball flys by them and the DB takes a cheap shot could be candidates for flagrant 2s, along with things like nutpinching or other misbehavior in pileups. Hitting a defenseless QB in an illegal manner (e.g. in the head or lower legs or spearing them) would be other candidates. Extremely blatant and viscous late hits could be another. On the SJB hit, on a simple swing pass out of the backfield, that should never be called after the guy makes a football move. Arguably you can say he speared but is is far from blatant and appeared more of a perfect shoulder lead form tackle. Worst cast was a flagrant 1 and 15-yard penalty, but that's one I think should have been overturned and an ejection is completely unconscionable in that situation and detracts from the game.

Agree that it will be interesting to see whether the D has more spring in their step with the return to the TA RKIII combo.

LOL @ another Martinez thread saying all the stuff I've been saying for about 3 years now. Only until this year would anyone even listen. So we can consider all of this just "pent up" bashing of his QB abilities which I understand and imagine feels good to type. HOWEVER, none of the numerous redundant posts and threads should be a NEWS FLASH to anyone. At this point I think it FINALLY goes without saying. So, frustrating as this has all been leading up to the MN loss, consider whether it is time to stop piling on TM and whether it's been enough already. As I myself have been quite critical this is to some degree the pot calling the kettle black, but something to consider.

I think Newby will be even better before its all said and done here. He's more of a home run threat and more elusive. Abdullah probably a bit better inside runner.

The sad part is the video is before the game and then they went out and did it fairly easily. They said with 6 in the box it would be 6-7 yards before the safety was in on the play. I'm thinking 8-10 yards but the point is you don't win conceding the run game like that. I've been screaming for us to crowd the line of scrimmage more and play pressure defense. McBride once said we determined it was best to pressure and play mostly man-to-man pass coverage. While that resulted in a few big plays per game, the other team had few sustained drives and great difficulty running the ball. As we know, the team that runs the ball better usually wins. That is especially true as we move into bad weather November stretch run games. In fact, that is exactly the reason Osborne went to the option offense to begin with. Nothing has really changed, to be honest, for us to not go back to being an option heavy team (except perhaps coache's ability to implement). This is not rocket science here!

I am not sure either. Ron has played well. More than I could have imagined since he held the clipboard for years. He throws it real nice. Very catchable. Makes quick decision and gets rid of it. There isn't a threat to call a running option play with him. And he did look like a statue getting sacked a couple times when no one is open. So it could be that? But then, we do have the running backs to do all the running we need, while Ron does the passing. Seems simple. Who knows? I don't. We want ta to get experience for next season and dual threat qbs are our true heritage. TA threw as well or better than RK first 2 games. RK is very slow so less chance to scramble for plus yardage and avoid a sack. Pretty simple I like both though.

No, but neither is the one to remove him when it's clear that he isn't good to go by anyone with a set of eyes. I guess the quick 10-0 lead was deceiving, but what did we throw for like 60 yards the rest of the game despite trying like heck? Even when we should have been running more, it should have become very obvious things were not ok after we laid an egg on offense for the middle 2 quarters of the game.

If Armstrong or RK III starts and we see the same offense we saw the prior 3 games, I would hope we are ready to face reality of who our top 2 QBs really are at this point.

On a positive note, our loss to MN looked a lot like OSUs struggle against Iowa. The difference was they had the horsepower to still win 34-24. It would not take a lot for us to swing that pendelum either, performances like we had against Illinois and Purdue would do it. What OSU did to PSU was very impressive though and indicates the Buckeyes are on par with Bama, Oregon, and FSU. Unfortunately for them the playoff is coming a year to late, should they be the odd team out of more than two unbeatens.

Sadly that is not news to me at all its been obvious for several years now. If your point is just that he's found a new low, I can't disagree with you there.

There is shame in giving up 50-70 points and losing by 4 or more touchdowns as we have done now to Michigan, OSU, and Wisconsin twice now. Unfortunately its become the new normal against those teams away from home. I'm simply not jonesing to be in the CCG this year under this regime, and do not see OSU as an "opportunity" I want for this team. Urban Meyer v Bo Pelini is a HUGE mismatch. I also believe ugly losses like that are bad for the program.