Zac Lee will be the starter

[Scratchtown]

I, on the other hand don't mind sounding like a broken record. Lee stunk last year. If I hear about those damn elbow ligaments again, I'll puke. If it hurt that bad, he wouldn't have been throwing, he couldn't have thrown, he would have been sitting. No one I know of even saw him grab his elbow after a pass. I don't care if you are trying not to act hurt, if it hurts enough, it will show. Maudfather was right about all of the other questionable skills. He CAN"T run. He looked in over his head, because he was. If he does start, it only means all of our qb's stink. We will need Brion and Jamal to get ready quickly then. We also need to convince Bubba to play football over taking the $$$. As for TMart not being ready, who knows about his maturity level? It does take a rare guy to start so soon and play well, but Robert Griffin did it and did it well. Maybe TMart can do it too. I hope so. Again, if Lee is our qb, our D WILL have to be better than last year. No mistakes!

 

Its called a cortizone shot. Especially since Green was the backup.

[zoogs]

Honestly from all we've heard on Lee's injury, it sounds like we placed winning as a priority over the kid's health and should be just glad it hasn't messed him up like Spano. Lee missed TWO starts actually, but was put right back into it early against OU when it looked like we could grab that game away from the Sooners. If we had a healthy Spano or Witt in the fold, I think Lee's injury would have come out sooner and he would've been shelved for a while to heal up.

 

As much as we talk about depth, I wonder if lack of depth has been a real sore spot for these coaches over the past two seasons. Must be hard to deal with a rash of injuries and finding nothing left in the cupboard. McNeil, Lee, Helu, and half the OL last year for instance.

[bshirt]

I, on the other hand don't mind sounding like a broken record. Lee stunk last year. If I hear about those damn elbow ligaments again, I'll puke. If it hurt that bad, he wouldn't have been throwing, he couldn't have thrown, he would have been sitting. No one I know of even saw him grab his elbow after a pass. I don't care if you are trying not to act hurt, if it hurts enough, it will show. Maudfather was right about all of the other questionable skills. He CAN"T run. He looked in over his head, because he was. If he does start, it only means all of our qb's stink. We will need Brion and Jamal to get ready quickly then. We also need to convince Bubba to play football over taking the $$$. As for TMart not being ready, who knows about his maturity level? It does take a rare guy to start so soon and play well, but Robert Griffin did it and did it well. Maybe TMart can do it too. I hope so. Again, if Lee is our qb, our D WILL have to be better than last year. No mistakes!

 

Yeah, I'm a broken record too.

 

But for the life of me, I just can't understand the overwhelming confidence most fans have for Lee. What is it about the guy that convinces everybody and their brother to hurl endless excuses for him?

 

If the injury is the big excuse then how come his best game was in the Holiday bowl? Shouldn't that have been his worst?

 

The next big excuse is "experience". Experience at what?? Going 3 & out a thousand times? Why......just tell me why....that's such a HUGE asset and reason #1 used for why Green/Martinez/Spano will sit on the bench. Why not just take a knee three times and punt? I could easily understand those thoughts if we're talking about a productive returning NU qb. But Lee was "not" a productive qb last year. Especially after the THREE SunBelt patsies. A whole five 1st downs a game......Jeeesh.

 

Without a NC caliber defense we would have had yet another losing season last year. Quite possibly even worse than 2007.

 

While I suppose it's possible Lee could be a totally different and productive qb this year I sure wouldn't bet the ranch on it. Thankfully, I'm reasonably sure Bo won't be as easily satisfied with Lee's...ahem...."production" as many of my fellow NU posters.

 

My money is on Green or Martinez taking the job fulltime at some point this year and there won't be any looking back.

[knapplc]

I have an injury to my foot and my golf game is gone all to hell. I've had shoulder injuries and my volleyball game went all to hell. None of my injuries have ever required surgery like Lee. Despite that, he ended up leading the team to 9 wins this year. That's a hell of a decent record for his first year starting in Div1A.

 

Don't believe me? Let's look at the stats:

 

Our SOS last year was 52nd in the nation (Sagarin). That means we played a slightly better than average schedule of competition. Against that competition Lee went:

 

177/302 (58.6%) He threw 10 INT against 14 TDs, had 2,100 yards with a QB rating of 126.89. Those are decent but modest numbers for a first-year starter.

 

To put that into perspective, Lee's Passing Efficiency put him in this neighborhood:

 

Jeremiah Masoli (ORE); SOS = 6

Terrelle Pryor (tOSU); SOS = 50

Zac Lee (NU); SOS = 52

Zac Robinson (OSU); SOS = 49

Nick Foles (AZ); SOS = 11

Kyle Parker (CLEM); SOS = 24

Tim Hiller (WMICH); SOS = 119

Austen Arnaud (ISU); SOS = 71

 

STATS

 

To my knowledge, none of these guys required off-season surgery. I included Hiller because he was getting some draft hype, and he ended up signing with the Colts. Also, to my knowledge, Parker was the only one in this group who entered 2009 without game experience, like Lee.

 

The bottom line is this - Lee did decent his first season under center. He neither lit up the field with his brilliance nor fell apart under pressure. He did just fine against some pretty stiff competition (VA Tech, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Arizona) and he didn't do enough against some (Texas Tech, ISU). Sadly, the same can be said of everyone on the team, especially our skill players.

 

Give the guy a break and let's see what he looks like as the season progresses. If/when he starts costing us games, then let's talk about replacing him. Until then, the guy is doing OK in my book.

[HuskerNMO]

Honestly from all we've heard on Lee's injury, it sounds like we placed winning as a priority over the kid's health and should be just glad it hasn't messed him up like Spano. Lee missed TWO starts actually, but was put right back into it early against OU when it looked like we could grab that game away from the Sooners. If we had a healthy Spano or Witt in the fold, I think Lee's injury would have come out sooner and he would've been shelved for a while to heal up.

 

As much as we talk about depth, I wonder if lack of depth has been a real sore spot for these coaches over the past two seasons. Must be hard to deal with a rash of injuries and finding nothing left in the cupboard. McNeil, Lee, Helu, and half the OL last year for instance.

 

I am convinced that we have the worst medical staff possible, every time I hear of someone getting injured they either don't make it back or get injured repeatedly after.

 

As far as Lee and the elbow goes, it got worse over the year. If you follow baseball, Ben Sheets just got shut down with the same injury. His last two games he pitched pretty well, but his velocity was down significantly. Many MLB pitches pitch through the injury, it usually takes approximately 6 months after a surgery to get back up to normal strength. Which is about right, Lee had his surgery in January, and his back to his normal arm strength now that it's hitting July and August.

 

Lee's stats against BCS schools were nothing short of horrific last year though. Even including the Holiday Bowl here's his stats verse BCS schools. But Lee was injured almost the entire year, and it wasn't just the elbow. He hurt his throwing wrist in the Arkansas State game, which bothered him throughout the year, it was adjusting for that injury that caused his elbow problems. Then in the VT game he broke his non-throwing thumb if I recall, and I think it was the Colorado game that he hurt his knee but came right back in. I think the team trusts and respects Lee, I think Cody is okay in that department. It's pure conjecture at this point from me, but I don't think Martinez has many teamates in his corner yet, especially the upper classmen.

 

I don't think people are so much excited about Lee as they are cautious about the decision making of Green and the inexperience of Martinez. I think the ONLY player that has a chance of beating out a healthy Lee is Green, but I don't see that happening. I think Green will be our clear cut #2, with Martinez limited to some specific sets and trick plays at the most.

 

[knapplc]

Depending on how long it took you to write that, we were probably writing those posts at the same time.

[HuskerNMO]

Depending on how long it took you to write that, we were probably writing those posts at the same time.

 

The post didn't take long, formatting stats on this board on the other hand...ugh!

[zoogs]

Did you try to make a table and ended up just posting up a picture?

 

I agree on the medical staff. Very questionable decision making there...

 

Basically, we have a quarterback in Lee who started all of last year for us, played his heart out and is in theory the most talented true quarterback on the team. On top of being a gutsy competitor who sucked it up and played through pain. It's really hard not to root for a guy like that! But me, I rooted for Keller and Dailey too. So maybe I don't have enough negativity about our starting QBs. I don't remember there being a starting QB I didn't root for really. So when Lee gets all this crazy message board vitriol, I think that's why you see a lot of people jumping to his defense.

 

Nobody is saying Lee is going to be a Heisman caliber QB this year or anything. I am saying he is a talent and the best we have, and I look forward to seeing him on the field this year. There's this camp, and there's the "He's probably not a superstar, so let's try every guy on the roster until we find one" camp. As if it's impossible for this O and its QB play to get worse. I'm not so sure people really understand how possible that is. As it stands, there is a lot more to commanding this offense than being fast and a good runner.

[huskers17]

I understand people are optimistic that Lee will come back healthy and develop into a solid starting QB on a top level team...but I just don't have that confidence right now. I think he and Green will be closer at 1/2 than people think, but they are quite a bit better than option #3, Martinez. Martinez does bring some unique skills to the table for a wildcat type of situation, and considering he's a QB, that should be a very interesting wildcat type of formation.

 

I think people are too down on both Lee and Green after last year. Neither of them were in good situations, and Green was a true freshman on top of that. Personally, my choice would be Green 1/Lee 2. I don't see it going that way, at least not initially. I think we'll see Lee get the starts for the first few games, and Cody sprinkled in every now and then, as well as packages for Martinez.

[EZ-E]

Read it! Please

 

I have not heard too much on Zac's elbow other than what is in the thread I linked. I know a message board isn't always 100% spot on, but with all the anti-Zac Lee things going around lately I would imagine that nobody would lie about something like that.

 

Martinez will be on the field this fall. He will have packages made for him to take shotgun snaps and make plays. But he will not be our starting quarterback this year. He played with the twos in 7-on-7s and Cody Green and Kody Spano went with the ones. T-Magic could develop into our starting QB, but not this year. The winter of 2011 is going to be a great QB battle.

[whateveritis1224]

Martinez was unimpressive passing the ball in the spring game, probably did worse than Green. But he does need to get on the field.

[HuskerNMO]

Martinez was unimpressive passing the ball in the spring game, probably did worse than Green. But he does need to get on the field.

Slot WR would be ideal, I wish he'd be willing to make the move.

[HuskerNMO]

Read it! Please

 

I have not heard too much on Zac's elbow other than what is in the thread I linked. I know a message board isn't always 100% spot on, but with all the anti-Zac Lee things going around lately I would imagine that nobody would lie about something like that.

 

Martinez will be on the field this fall. He will have packages made for him to take shotgun snaps and make plays. But he will not be our starting quarterback this year. He played with the twos in 7-on-7s and Cody Green and Kody Spano went with the ones. T-Magic could develop into our starting QB, but not this year. The winter of 2011 is going to be a great QB battle.

That thread is partially right, the tear didn't happen in game 2. The injury that led to it did though, but the observation is spot on. Niles Paul has been quoted as being caught off guard by his arm strength in the past few weeks.

[Captain K]

Did you try to make a table and ended up just posting up a picture?

 

I agree on the medical staff. Very questionable decision making there...

 

Basically, we have a quarterback in Lee who started all of last year for us, played his heart out and is in theory the most talented true quarterback on the team. On top of being a gutsy competitor who sucked it up and played through pain. It's really hard not to root for a guy like that! But me, I rooted for Keller and Dailey too. So maybe I don't have enough negativity about our starting QBs. I don't remember there being a starting QB I didn't root for really. So when Lee gets all this crazy message board vitriol, I think that's why you see a lot of people jumping to his defense.

 

Nobody is saying Lee is going to be a Heisman caliber QB this year or anything. I am saying he is a talent and the best we have, and I look forward to seeing him on the field this year. There's this camp, and there's the "He's probably not a superstar, so let's try every guy on the roster until we find one" camp. As if it's impossible for this O and its QB play to get worse. I'm not so sure people really understand how possible that is. As it stands, there is a lot more to commanding this offense than being fast and a good runner.

I'm not in the ''he's probably not a superstar, let's try everyone else on the roster" camp. I'm in the "the guy can't pass and the guy can't run camp." I'm not going to give him a break unless someone can show me where the ligament affecting his arm runs all the way down to his leg. And, you know what else, the guy didn't show any leadership either. You also need to show me where "commanding" this offense can be accomplished by a qb who has no leadership ability, no legs and no arm.

[Scratchtown]

Did you try to make a table and ended up just posting up a picture?

 

I agree on the medical staff. Very questionable decision making there...

 

Basically, we have a quarterback in Lee who started all of last year for us, played his heart out and is in theory the most talented true quarterback on the team. On top of being a gutsy competitor who sucked it up and played through pain. It's really hard not to root for a guy like that! But me, I rooted for Keller and Dailey too. So maybe I don't have enough negativity about our starting QBs. I don't remember there being a starting QB I didn't root for really. So when Lee gets all this crazy message board vitriol, I think that's why you see a lot of people jumping to his defense.

 

Nobody is saying Lee is going to be a Heisman caliber QB this year or anything. I am saying he is a talent and the best we have, and I look forward to seeing him on the field this year. There's this camp, and there's the "He's probably not a superstar, so let's try every guy on the roster until we find one" camp. As if it's impossible for this O and its QB play to get worse. I'm not so sure people really understand how possible that is. As it stands, there is a lot more to commanding this offense than being fast and a good runner.

I'm not in the ''he's probably not a superstar, let's try everyone else on the roster" camp. I'm in the "the guy can't pass and the guy can't run camp." I'm not going to give him a break unless someone can show me where the ligament affecting his arm runs all the way down to his leg. And, you know what else, the guy didn't show any leadership either. You also need to show me where "commanding" this offense can be accomplished by a qb who has no leadership ability, no legs and no arm.

 

 

 

 

How many first year starting qb's are great leaders? Who at the time did we have instead? I'm sorry dude, but if Zac Lee can't get the job done. Then Nebraska should not be in the top 15 let alone the top 10...at least to start the season.

 

Everyone is hyping Nebraska because of the way we played against Texas(soft oline), Arizona(who sucks) oh yea and BP's comment after the holiday bowl and the one saying nebraska's defense will be 5 times better? give me a break we all know that its not true. I'm not at all saying it can't happen, but very unlikely. I think the D will still be very solid, but we will give up more than 10.5 pts a game.

 

Offensively, if we become 1 dimensional because Green/Martinez can't throw then we are back to where we were a year ago. We don't have Ingram / Richardson in the backfield....I've said this before but Roy Helu is nothing against the top defenses. Burkhead, eh we still don't know yet.

 

As for Helu and those of you who think VaTech had a good defense, yea they did, against the pass. Against the rush they were 78th (ish)

 

Remember the Gator Bowl, Helu sucked, then got slammed got hurt.