Husker in WI

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.

Way over. Nebraska takeaways - 1.5

It's also not just us that hates this crew: Michigan Everyone in the B1G, especially Penn State and Michigan And he looks like the Janitor from Scrubs. I see Michigan fans bringing up '2018 Nebraska' as an example. Did we have players getting away with cheap shots or something? Seems weird to hate on the officiating in a blowout win. Yeah maybe it sucked, but usually there are better things to remember.

I think it's going to be a consistent theme among our early commits - too early to say for sure, but feels like the staff is good at identifying underrated/not fully evaluated/junior-senior year leap guys.

I'm just waiting for one team to really struggle, and the media to attribute it entirely to the difference in preparation methods. Obviously the weather will be a factor, I'm not convinced how the teams prepare for it will. Now if we drop a ton of passes and fumble a bunch and Minny doesn't I could see it, but I suspect the impact of the weather prep/lack of prep will be minimal.

By that logic they should always be practicing wearing ankle weights and hands dipped in ice water. Make it that much easier in the September games when you can move freely and its 70 degrees.

Run plays sure - I dunno, I'll have to rewatch them but BTN keeps taking down the 40 minute versions. My impression has been he sometimes flees the pocket instead of stepping up and standing in. I have no problem with that since it gives a run threat instead of potentially getting trapped, but feels like more of a choice than the defense forcing it. Definitely could be wrong though.

Yeah, good points. And technically if we win the West we have 8 games remaining, so there's still time. I will say I think the line problems are much more the snaps and penalties than pass protection, outside of OSU and the second half against Colorado. Martinez hasn't been constantly running for his life outside of those games.