whateveritis1224

I see where you get that, but I see more Jason Taylor and Brian Arakpo in him. What you guys think now? I can definately see all three of those guys in him and I think it would be interesting to see two things: 1) Where JPP was at this stage in his development 2) What our plans are with him. Do we bulk him up or do we keep him long and lean? What you think? He's perfect just the way he is. The coaches should not do anything with him besides maintaining. His pursuit speed is too good to have him put on weight.

I don't think the majority of people have a problem with targeting being called. It's the fact that the ejection was upheld when worse and more egregious hits (even later in the day) haven't had the player disqualified.

They did get the targeting call right, it's the ejection they got wrong. It wasn't a very hard hit, and it wasn't done with malicious intent, so the ejection shouldn't have been upheld.

I'm fine with it being called targeting. Really the only reason was because he had his head down (which begs to question if the side judge who was right there didn't call anything, why did the guy 10-20 yards behind the play?), but upholding the ejection is an absolute sham. Now I didn't see the play, but I guess Ole Miss had someone launch, have targeting called on him, and have it overturned. Has an SEC team have someone disqualified for that penalty yet? Is there a understanding by replay officials down there that no matter what the hit is, they won't disqualify? Bottom line, it was a weak targeting call that was exacerbated when they upheld the ejection. If he hadn't been ejected, us fans would have moved on by now.

What more can the receivers do? Armstrong has had a lot of bad throws today, and that last pick was terrible.

Could be until they know the full extent they don't want him to put any pressure on his knee.

I think it's because Kellogg has outplayed Armstrong so far. It hasn't been a good game by our offense.

Good on some series, bad on others. Consistency is the name of the game. It really started once Long went down. The inconsistency that is.

That was Cotton.

Sneaky good part of the team this year, the Kickoff coverage team. Vast improvement over last year.

Yep....damn if ya do...damn if ya don't. It comes down to execution. Just gotta execute and you'll have no problems.

Unfortunately probably. Rk has been playing great. Really no reason not to put him out there for a series or two. I go back to the fact that we have no had to punt once when TA is in there. That is some productivity. Nothing against RKIII While the fact that we haven't punted with TA is true, we haven't scored every single time he's lead a drive. There have been some fumbles lost.

Way too easy, it's Nyatawa. What do I win?

This. Martinez had turf toe his freshman year as well, and he came back as a very effective runner both his sophomore and junior years. Don't know when he'll be fully healthy again after this injury, or when he'll be effective again, but if he gets back to 100%, you're crazy not to put a guy like that in the game. He knows the whole offense, he can progress through his reads, he's a threat to score on any given play, and he is among the most accurate passers in the conference (even after going up against defenses like Michigan and Michigan State, which TA has not done yet). Also kinda tired of hearing how TA is a better runner than TM. They're styles are so different. TA is never going to be someone who takes it 40 yards for a score (or even 20 yards, maybe), and he's never going to be a 1000 yards rusher like TM. He is shiftier in small places and because of that, he is able to keep you more on schedule at times. But to say that one of those running styles completely outweighs the other is wrong - they're both effective in their own way. Don't forget to mention Taylors penchant for fumbles. He rarely progresses through all of his reads. Really rare. He has horrible pocket presence. He hasn't proven to be a running threat AT ALL this year. The threat of him going the distance on every play, isn't there right now. You assume he will get back to 100%. That's a big assumption. Tommy definitely has his faults, but I prefer a RS FR make the mistakes than a RS SR. Yes, this is assuming he's back to 100%. It's all hypothetical. If he's not 100%, by all means, play Armstrong. But if Taylor is back to 100%, he's absolutely a threat to run the ball, and anybody who says otherwise has completely lost their objectivity. You're right, Taylor has had a penchant for fumbles. Armstrong has fumbled the ball as well, but he's mostly an unknown at this point. Taylor didn't have a fumbles problem two starts into his career either - it was revealed over time. Taylor does do a better job of going through his reads - that's an area that he has improved in a great deal, and I'm not so sure I've seen Armstrong throw to a checkdown receiver yet. Oh, undoubtedly. i highly doubt Taylor will even glimpse 100% this season, I'd be shocked if he got to 90%, and the 10% difference is HUGE, especially for Taylor, as he relies purely on straight speed and doesn't have any moves to "juke" the defender. My whole position on TA, has been based off of things I've heard about Taylor. They'll say he is 100% (see paragraph 2), but he won't be. They'll probably play him (unfortunately) at 90% when he clearly can't do the things he wants to. His mechanics are thrown off, he can't run efficiently (especially between his shoulder & ankle) and he still has some interesting decisions. That said, Taylor @ 100% is lethal. For instance, wasn't he supposed to be 100% going into this season? From game one, everyone could tell he wasn't 100%. Everyone assumed he wasn't supposed to run per coaches orders, but that is bullsh#t. I truly think if we start the season with TA at QB (to let Taylor really heal) and then bring Taylor back for UCLA, that game goes a lot differently. At the very least, once coaches notice how ineffective Taylor was, they could've thrown Tommy into the game to try and get anything going. We might not win, but at least we have true faith in our backup QB to get something going when our offense is clearly struggling. That was the MOST painful part of that game. Yeah the defense sucked, but the offense didn't help flip the field position, nor did it do a YOUNG defense (who was supposed to use the offense as a crutch) any favors by going 3 & out repeatedly. I can't help but think if we played UCLA next week and Taylor pulled the sh#t he did that game, his ass would be on the bench watching TA try to get something going. Do I think we will be better without Taylor? I have NO clue, but I'd rather risk finding out if we can be better (in a big game) with a different QB, than continue the trend of getting obliterated in big games. I'd like to give a chance to a more traditional QB who can run our entire playbook (for the most part), who will make freshman mistakes (as a freshman, and not as a RS senior) and see how he reacts in a big game (now that he has experience in games. Next step, is a road game.) Taylor has proven to be ineffective at best against defenses that are as athletic, or more athletic, than he is. Coupled with a gameplan that doesn't allow him to run, pressures him into bad decisions, and forces him to throw, we have better options. Finally, lets not act like Taylor is some grand master at knowing the offense. Yeah, sure he knows it a bit, but its only his second year in the offense, and he isn't some wizard at reading defenses. I also find it laughable that people actually think Taylor is that hard to gameplan for. There is a reason teams only have to use 3 different defenses the WHOLE game. They aren't trying to confuse him. They don't care if he knows what they are doing. They line up in their defense, show us exactly what they are doing, and force Taylor to throw, because he can't beat them with his arm. Other teams players have repeatedly said this. Wisconsin players think he is a complete joke at QB, for instance. As far as Knapplc, I completely disagree. He has won us games, he has lost us games, and he has led us to come from behind victories - BUT - those come from behind victories, some of them wouldn't be "comebacks" if he wasn't making idiotic decisions and fumbling left and right. For instance, Michigan State, I specifically remember at least 1 HORRIBLE interception and some pretty bad reads. Another QB, who knows if they have that kind of day turning the ball over. Obviously he has won us plenty of games, especially the last 3 years. I just think this is the first year that he could possibly not be the answer at QB. I'll also add the disclaimer that Ameer has some pretty costly fumbles and the defense isn't doing any favors as well. It isn't Taylors fault if we lose, but he is a part of the issue. The first INT in the MSU game looked absolutely horrible the first time I saw it, but when I rewatched the game as Taylor was releasing the ball he got hit almost exactly like the play that got called a personal foul later in the game. It still might have been a bad throw, but it probably wouldn't have been thrown directly to the MSU guy.

Even with 5 INTs in 3 games? Too bad, out of those 5 INT's, we didn't have a defense that could prevent them from turning into scores, hell they couldn't stop a regular drive from scoring. To blame those games solely on Martinez is utterly ridiculous. Didn't blame the losses solely on Martinez. 5 INTs in 3 games is still tough to overcome. One of those ints was a gift by Bell. Absolute freak play that squirted through his hands and into the arms of the defender. Every single one of Martinez's runs was something Armstrong couldn't have done. In those situations, Armstrong is getting a first down and moving the chains, but he's not getting a TD or even close. Martinez's problems passing are more his footwork and his body placement over the actual arm motion. He fixed a lot of that last year, but still got in trouble a times. I like Armstrong a lot, but he threw high on a lot of passes on Saturday, and it wasn't because of the wind. He's going to start against Purdue, but Martinez is going to come back against Minnesota to shake some rust off and get ready for Northwestern.

Couple of plays today that if Martinez was in the same situation would have scored. The time he reversed field and there was another scramble that the defensive player closed the angle really quick. Having said that, Martinez couldn't have made that pitch fake. I agree with you. Thing is I think TA has a much higher ceiling than TM and think by the time he's a senior he'll be better than Taylor is now. But I don't think he's our starter this year. 100% agree with you. Armstrong has been impressive in different ways then Martinez was when he was a freshman, and the things he's been impressive at are more conducive at running an offense that is very steady. And that's been one of the biggest knocks on Martinez's tenure, the big plays that were followed by terrible ones. The MSU game from last year is a microcosm of Martinez's career. Martinez runs for over 200 and leads a last minute TD for the win, but the reason we were in that situation was because he put us in it. I will look back at Martinez with fondness, because he's the QB who led us through the last year in the Big XII and the transition to the Big 10.

I'd start TA against Purdue to. The schedule sets up for Martinez to return to full health with minimal need for him. Sit him next week, we have a bye the week after and have hime come back against Minnesota.

I'd guess that 45 degrees with 30 mph steady winds is pretty uncomfortable for people who just sweated through 87 degrees and high humidity on Friday. You may be incredibly tough, and the 80 percent of fans that saw the final seconds along with you, but if you underestimated these conditions by a layer you were going home early. Watched until the game switched to Miami/GT. There was a number of things that concerned me with Illinois' last drive, mainly the fact that everyone looked disinterested. But we were up by 27 with 5 minutes left. It would have been better to play and finish the entire game, but the last 5 minutes shouldn't take away from the first 55. We have a game against a not good Purdue team next week, followed by a bye. Then a game against an alright, leaning towards not good, Minnesota before the meat of the schedule comes up. That's 3 more weeks of learning for the defense against 2 teams with bad offenses and a bye. That's a lot of time for improvement.

Couple of plays today that if Martinez was in the same situation would have scored. The time he reversed field and there was another scramble that the defensive player closed the angle really quick. Having said that, Martinez couldn't have made that pitch fake.

This won't go far No no no, the dancing bear has a point.

Let's see where this goes.

Maybe not dialing it down, but changing up the practice schedule so they're practicing less plays more.

The writing was on the wall yesterday when Martinez didn't practice. Unless something happens, I'd expect the caches to run the same exact game plan that they did against SDSU. Armstrong will start and go 2 series, Kellogg will come in and run 2 series, then we'll see where things go. If one struggles, the other one will probably play the rest of the game.