Husker in WI

My bad, could've sworn he was listed at 6'2. 6'3 is still short, particularly for what this staff wants outside. The last recruiting class we had a bunch of 6'6-6'9 guys, and this year the tackles are 6'6+ too. Height isn't everything and maybe he could be a good tackle, but they're trying to get the body types they want in the positions they want.

Who's the last 6'2 tackle you remember? That might work in a downhill running scheme, but you need reach outside. He'd have DEs who could get their hands in on him before he can reach them, and when that happens I don't care how strong he is.

Is it actually done? We added another ad, removed the ability to see what the next unread topic is from within a thread, and changed my avatar icon thing to blue instead of green?

I am weighing the recent turnovers more heavily because the team has made progress since the first games. Obviously not as much as we'd like. The "few low hanging apples" happen to be the only apples because we're talking about 5 turnovers, or if you are only talking about fumbles we're down to 2. I've shifted my arguments because it went from "Martinez has the most turnovers" to "Martinez fumbles too much" to "I was speaking generally, you're missing the orchard for the apples. The "orchard" of fumbles in the past 4 games is literally 2 fumbles against Illinois. Not sure where else I'm supposed to focus. I will grant you against USA and Colorado Martinez was too fumble prone, I am and have been arguing he has fixed that for the most part. I'm going to be a little pedantic here: You cannot use an absolute (funnily enough the absolute you used "absolutely") if you're excluding specific cases. It is an absolute, by definition it encompasses all of the specific cases. "Absolutely nothing" does refer to every single individual fumble because it is an absolute, you've left no room to say "except for these ones." If you'd said "almost nothing to do with" I would have no issue with your argument, I would just disagree. But you can't argue an absolute and then claim it wasn't intended to refer to every case. I'm being pedantic sure, but words do matter.

There was a screen this last week that actually looked good, but Jurgens needed to peel back and find a guy to block. He kept going downfield where only one defender (already blocked) was. I think that's just a new to the position mistake. But yeah in general the screens have been bad.

You're right, your second post is specific to fumbles. Which he has done twice since Illinois, and one was on the line. Your initial post said: Martinez has turned the ball overmore than any other Division 1 player this season. that has nothing to do with the o-line.  Don't see anything eliminating the INTs there. I guess my point is he has largely cleaned up the carrying the ball loosely fumbles since Colorado. And I believe the line is partially responsible for a lot of his turnovers in general. We can disagree on how much.

I don't think the line was the biggest factor for #1, and I get not counting it. But it immediately broke the play and turned it into everyone running toward the sideline. Martinez gets most of the blame for sure, a chunk for WanDale's route and for me, a piece for the line. If you don't think Farniok affected the throw on #2 I can't help you.

I am also not great at evaluating line play, but it seems like a lot of his issues have come from overcompensating against edge rushers. He was scared of Young and got way too far upfield, so Young would just cut back inside. Some of these it feels like he's just barely getting to his spot, so once he's there he's a little off balance and can be bull rushed.I would be at least curious to see him at Guard, but not if it means someone worse at Tackle.

I get your opinion, I just disagree. And there are inconsistencies in using phrases like "absolutely nothing to do with," and then saying only "most" of the issue aren't on the line. Is it absolutely nothing or is it some of the time, it can't be both. And I just disagree in general, but that's subjective. He needs better ball security for sure, but several of the fumbles have been affected by the line. His turnovers since Illinois: 1) Illinois fumbled read option. Seems like he tried to give and the back had already given up. Hard to assign blame here, although the entire play was blown up -probably why the back assumed he wasn't getting the ball. He was the right read, but had no room anyway. Either way partially on Martinez and on the back, but I would argue the line is partially to blame as well. 2) Sack Fumble! Surprise! 3) INT #1 against OSU - heck of a play by the defender, and Wan'dale needed to stay flat to no be undercut. Partially Martinez, and since he was flushed from the pocket almost before he caught the snap I give some blame to the line. 4) INT #2 against OSU - not a good throw, but freakishly weird that it was picked anyway. Also had Farniok in his lap, so partially on the line. If he can step into that throw, it's a TD. 5) INT #3 - entirely on Martinez. So at least 3 (and I would argue 4) of the last 5 had the line at least contributing.

You could see their play action coming too, it was just textbook. Like none of the pass calls were unexpected, but we were selling out to stop the run so it didn't matter. We made their OCs job super easy - they'd be running it well, and right when you think "they could kill us with a shot" that's exactly what they did.

Either way, like you said let's make sure we have an extra year of a legitimate lineman! I'm curious if Gaylord would be getting a look if his season hadn't ended. I generally like Jaimes and am not quite as low on Farniok as some, but that showing was terrible across the board. We just don't even have the guys to try behind them. Bando appears to be the 6th lineman everywhere except Center, he came in for Jaimes the one game and then Hixson this week. Kinda surprised it wasn't Raridon, not a great sign for him.

I'm a little concerned with Allen's comments about the time away from each other during the bye week being good. I get it, it's a grind and a break is nice, but you don't often hear guys on a team talking like that. Am I reading too much into that?

Do you think the plan is to move him to LT down the road? Just curious, I feel like you see more 6'9 RTs than LTs. I also figured they have him at RT now for a reason since he could backup either spot, but that reason could be because they were hoping he could win a job and Farniok's would be easier to take than Jaimes'.

1) Yes 2) Probably

Huh. That's fun, but I have no idea why either team would go to Ireland. Notre Dame playing there occasionally makes a little sense, although I doubt they're really embraced by the actual Irish. I suppose in either case your target audience isn't people from Ireland, it's US fans willing and able to fly there for a game. I don't expect a lot of orange in the stands.

Weird thing is, I could see them surprising Wisconsin. Wisconsin will be pissed about last years game, but I think the one weak spot on the Badger defense is the secondary - they still haven't been tested. They're athletic, but Johnson/Bateman/Autman-Bell is a big mismatch. The question is whether Fleck is bold enough to completely change how they attacked us and air it out. I think he probably is, and Minnesota showed at the end last year they can stand up to the run if that's how you're going to attack their defense. I agree Minnesota isn't as good as we made them look, but they have my attention because they have the best personnel to attack Wisconsin IMO.

It has a lot to do with the oline. I like how you insist Martinez's problems don't, but obviously Vedral was limited by the terrible line. Vedral wasn't the problem in this game, but I didn't see anything better than Martinez at any point. With the benefit of good snaps.

I'm gonna post my thoughts and then read through, so apologies if it's similar to everyone else. The silver lining I see is the coaches were forced to play some guys. Hixson was not the only guy struggling by any means, but they actually went and tried somebody else. Chase and Woodyard played quite a bit, and if Vedral had time probably would've had more of an impact. I've defended the line at least as pass protectors this year, but that was atrocious. There absolutely were open receivers, and Vedral didn't have time to get it to them. There were a few throws he could have anticipated and gotten out earlier, but I can't put that on him because the pressure was still getting there too fast. I dunno what the d-line issue is. I think a lot of times technically the issue was LBs not filling, but it's hard to fill a 15 yard wide gap. One thing I will credit Frost for, he could've tried to claim we still need more S&C since it's only year 2 (which probably would've been BS, but would've quieted some.) He didn't, he pointed out we absolutely shouldn't be getting pushed around like we did. Fixing it is another problem though. The offensive coaches needed to figure out a way to kick this in gear. The defense played poorly, but the offense was worse. My initial thought was teams are covering deep and making us go the length of the field because they know we can't without shooting ourselves in the foot. But it's not even that, Minnesota rarely had a deep safety. They know our only big play guys are in the backfield, so they can load the box and get the best of both worlds, stuff the run and not worry about getting beat deep.

I think this goes with a stat from another thread, over a quarter of our runs are getting stuffed. They don't (and never really have) run tempo when we're off schedule - if it's a 4-5 yard run on first down, we go fast. Not as fast as I expected either for sure, but they do it. But when we're consistently getting stuffed or getting false starts, they slow it down again.

He's played two, got some carries against NIU and was in for a drive against NW. I agree this might be a good one though, we know we'll have to run.

Technically if we went for 2 and Kansas intercepted it or recovered a fumble, then ran back into their end zone and got tackled it would be a 1 point safety. Or they could probably return our 2 point attempt (or even a blocked pat) and successfully drop kick it instead of returning it into the end zone.

Lol, Frost and Friday have similar swipe patterns on a phone keyboard.

Their running backs are healthy, and the receivers have stepped up. But basically the same personnel, just a year better.

I mean we knew Martinez would go, Friday said that yesterday.

There are plenty of fans doing what you're saying, but I think objectively the John O'Neill crew is bad. NW obviously has gripes, and so do we. I don't think the B1G refs are out to get us, but they are pretty bad.