QB Race

[Enhance]

the only one that looks to be a significant dual-threat is cody. tmart's only attempt at a deep ball was extremely ugly. tmart ran the offense pretty well and was electric, but can we afford to lose the deep ball threat that is niles paul? also, we have bigger problems...the dline play was shabby at best...if we give locker that kind of time we are gonna be in for a dogfight. i hope they have moved ltw back to LB...he should not be riding the pine. kick coverage was not good...that kid kept bringing it out from 3 yards deep in the endzone and went untouched to at least the 20 every time.

In defense of T-Mart, I remember his receiver not being near as open as Paul was when Green through him the ball. Also, Martinez's receivers dropped at least three passes last night. You can't really put that on Martinez.

 

Second, I think by the Washington game we will have some but not all of our defensive mistakes shored up. Our guys got sloppy and our young linebackers had troubles making the correct adjustments. I'm hoping they can fix these things by the Washington game or else you are right, we will have a tough time.

 

That said, Pelini was upset with his defense's performance last night. I don't think he is going to go easy on them at all the next two weeks. They need to play far better as a whole than they did last night.

 

the WRs also made some good grabs on pretty shaky balls, and all short passes. on the deep ball - there were 2 guys open and tmart threw it straight into the turf 20 yds downfield with no air under it and not within 10 yds of either reciever.

No matter how you slice it, we didn't have Lee's passing experience out there. Martinez isn't going to put up a 400+ yard passing game this year, unless he dumps off a bunch of big gainer screen passes.

[Bradr]

Oh hell, Martinez is already a better passer than Crouch ever was. And Green and Lee are better back ups than Bobby Newcombe and Monte Christo, even if Monte Christo had the more awesome name.

 

Also, Martinez is too cocky, but that will get pounded out of him soon. And Pelini is too testy with the media. You don't get to create a circus then complain about the circus.

 

Bigger concern is a Nebraska defense getting shredded by a Western Kentucky running game. But I think it was enough to wake them up.

 

Looks like an exciting year.

 

You have just picked out my afternoon movie good sir. Thank you!

[RedDenver]

Oh hell, Martinez is already a better passer than Crouch ever was. And Green and Lee are better back ups than Bobby Newcombe and Monte Christo, even if Monte Christo had the more awesome name.

 

Also, Martinez is too cocky, but that will get pounded out of him soon. And Pelini is too testy with the media. You don't get to create a circus then complain about the circus.

 

Bigger concern is a Nebraska defense getting shredded by a Western Kentucky running game. But I think it was enough to wake them up.

 

Looks like an exciting year.

Agreed.

 

I'd also like to point out that Martinez's first run involved several missed tackles. I doubt KSU or UT would miss that many. And as pointed out Martinez looked better throwing the ball than Crouch. After the limited views of him we got against a bad defense, I'd compare him to Bobby Newcombe.

[zoogs]

I thought Crouch was a pretty good passer in our day.

 

Anyway, I would say Martinez does not have the top-end speed and athleticism that Crouch did. Crouch was simply a monster. Fastest guy on the team, etc, etc. I didn't have internet message boards or read player analysis back then so it's tough for me to compare, especially since I was younger. But it does seem to me from highlight films that 1) Crouch is the far better athlete and 2) our current offense enables the QB to dazzle with his feet more than the power game and option did.

 

I notice that we didn't run a single option play yesterday.

 

Also, weird as this is, I don't know if WKU knew we were starting Taylor and could prepare for it. Of course we didn't delay the QB announcement to prevent WKU from having time to prepare, but that is how it turned out, no? Keying in on Taylor is probably not something they were ready for. Of course now, opponents such as Washington are put on notice. Not that I'm especially worried about Jake Locker anymore after seeing him get shut down by BYU.

[husker B-rent]

So BigWillie.....are you saying Lee "was screwed" out of his job? That's what some are stating....

 

Lee was undoubtedly screwed out of the job.

 

From nearly everyone I trust, they all said Zac was the most consistent QB throughout the entire camp and earned his spot. Some even admitted that teammates were saying Zac earned the job.

 

Of course, people will always fall to Bo on this - at least until he loses, then he will be a POS who got nothing right. Never smart to blindly follow anyone on anything.

 

i promise you that is not true.

 

maybe you can tell us what happened at Rosswell also?????

 

i know players that are on the team and practice with them every day that have each told me that Lee was outplayed. You can look back at my posts if you like, i was an avid supporter of Lee 98% of the time last season but he was outplayed by Martinez this fall.

 

this is first hand info straight from other players, so take it for what its worth i guess.

[irieboy8]

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade either because he is an exciting player, but the reality is that it was against Western Kentucky. While I hope he does turn out to be even better than the second coming of Eric Crouch, we'll have to see how he does against better defenses.

Until he runs wild against Texas and wins a couple of NC go along with his multiple heismans he is nothing close to Eric Crouch yet.

 

 

Its was Western Kentucky, hold the Kool Aid!!!

 

 

while i want him to do well and BY ALL MEANS I hope he does it was only the first game against pretty much one of the worst teams in D-1... so i think Idaho will tell us a lot and UDUB even more........ from then we need to have a plan abuot what we are gonna do and stick with it for the most part.....

[zoogs]

By the way, bshirt, interview question for ya What'd you think about all those horizontal WR screen passes that Watson was calling for Martinez? It's probably going to be a bigger part of the passing game with him at QB than otherwise.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Eric Crouch, bless him, simply wasn't a good passer. Good enough in high school when you want your best athlete getting every touch, but not in any college program unable to dominate via the running game.

 

Because the Huskers had so many rushing options and ran to set up a dozen or so passes a game, Eric Crouch passed only in very favorable high-percentage situations (and still wasn't a high-percentage passer, only 48% that first year). They gave him a lot of slow-developing screens, sideline routes and that great two step drop from the option where you can catch a guy breaking deep and the interception risk is lower. But Crouch wasn't good at hitting guys in step, rarely worked a crossing pattern and possibly never looked off a receiver in his life. Back then Husker qbs only threw to the primary receiver. If the second option was wide open waving his hands in the end zone, they probably still threw it to the primary receiver because that's how they practiced it. Crouch had tons of instinct and ability watching how the defensive line broke and improvising on the run, but he wasn't good enough to improvise in the passing game and that's why he could never be a professional quarterback.

 

While I pine for those great winning years of triple-option football, as a fan I enjoy watching this style of offense better.

[zoogs]

Just to play devil's advocate, but I think the team would realize that team unity and accepting the HC's decisions, are very important. This team buys in. Even if privately they were stunned by Lee's demotion, would they tell anyone, even each other, that Lee was screwed out of the job? I don't think so. It's coaches decision, just roll with it. Regardless of what happened, Lee being outplayed is going to be the official version of events.

[Paul in WI]

Eric Crouch, bless him, simply wasn't a good passer. Good enough in high school when you want your best athlete getting every touch, but not in any college program unable to dominate via the running game.

 

Because the Huskers had so many rushing options and ran to set up a dozen or so passes a game, Eric Crouch passed only in very favorable high-percentage situations (and still wasn't a high-percentage passer, only 48% that first year). They gave him a lot of slow-developing screens, sideline routes and that great two step drop from the option where you can catch a guy breaking deep and the interception risk is lower. But Crouch wasn't good at hitting guys in step, rarely worked a crossing pattern and possibly never looked off a receiver in his life. Back then Husker qbs only threw to the primary receiver. If the second option was wide open waving his hands in the end zone, they probably still threw it to the primary receiver because that's how they practiced it. Crouch had tons of instinct and ability watching how the defensive line broke and improvising on the run, but he wasn't good enough to improvise in the passing game and that's why he could never be a professional quarterback.

 

While I pine for those great winning years of triple-option football, as a fan I enjoy watching this style of offense better.

 

Thank you for saying that, because I was beginning to wonder if I watched an entirely different Crouch than everyone else here. The guy could fly, but his aerial game was shaky at best.

 

Regardless of the level of competition we faced last Saturday, nobody can say that Martinez doesn't have a set of jets of his own and some good moves to go with them. His passing accuracy was a LOT better than advertised. The fact that he's a freshman has me smiling for the future. He's got an awfully good chance to be awfully good, with 4 years ahead of him.

 

I can't imagine any freshman having a much better debut than what he had. So far so good.

[HuskerTrucker]

Let's wait and see what happens when we play someone that is actually ranked...I don't want to make the mistake of jumping on the band wagon too soon, but I have to admit that I am impressed with what I have seen so far. This is a much better start on offense than we have had in years. But I do have a suspicion that he will be slowed down a little when he faces a defense that actually has some speed themselves. But this is a great start. Good first game, but room for a lot of improvement.

[JTrain]

The only concern of mine was putting his arms up before crossing the goalline. A stricter officiating crew could easily call a celebration penalty, which by the new rules would annul the TD. Would be a crappy way to lose a big game.

 

As for the interview, it came across as far more awkward than anything else. I think the answer about not having to work hard just came across wrong. He was just trying to say that he had developed his skills his senior year of HS so there wasn't any huge improvement needed as far as running and making good passes.

[JOEY]

I told everyone that T-mart would start over lee and green In a thread awhile ago. I actually was one of the few people that thought martinez would start but I know that noboby will give me credit for predicting this and that I am just gonna get made fun of but w.e I know that we are only into game one but you can go back and see some of my posts I backed T-Magic in most threads

 

There were about 5-6 guys on here who were in love with Zac Lee. These are the guys who I was referring to in my post above. They were always right and anyone else who had a different opinion was going to get blasted for being so stupid.

yeah I know what you mean

[WCHusker]

Anyone who thinks Lee will be starting anytime soon doesn't realize the extent of the "dis" that was thrown in his face last night.

 

Think about it-he didn't see the field until garbage time. Barring injuries, he's going to have a butt full of splinters

[n.e.husker]

Its not a bad thing, this QB position that we are in. We have two experienced qbs and one young gun learning the ropes. We all know that anything can happen during the coarse of a season so we will need Zac to step up when called upon, and i trust in his ability to do so.