Who needs to have the better game?

[huskrinmissouri]

Gabbert or Martinez? For now, I'm thinking that there is more pressure on Gabbert to have a good game. He has the ability to pick everyone else up and as it goes with him, it goes with the team in my opinion. If he is just a bit off and we can get into his head (and that could prove difficult as he appears to be a pretty level headed player), that could greatly narrow missouri's play calling if our defense is playing well. On the other hand, Martinez of course has to hold on to the ball, but he's not the only option we have in terms of offense and diversity in play calling. Maybe it's a coin toss as to who means more to their team and having a good game. Perhaps you see someone else instead of these two? Any thoughts?

[HuskerJosh]

I think it's Gabbert, he's on the road in a hostile environment and his team's offense relies almost exclusively on him. We have two solid RBs to take some of the pressure off Martinez. Plus he has the hopes and dreams of all the Big 12 on his shoulders to not allow Nebraska to have a chance to win the Big 12.

[MUTigerFan]

I think it's Gabbert, he's on the road in a hostile environment and his team's offense relies almost exclusively on him. We have two solid RBs to take some of the pressure off Martinez. Plus he has the hopes and dreams of all the Big 12 on his shoulders to not allow Nebraska to have a chance to win the Big 12.

 

Have you even watched Missouri play? At one point on Saturday they had run 28 pass plays and 28 run plays. They made 12 first downs running, 12 passing and netted 178 yards on the ground. It's the most balanced offense in Pinkel's time at Mizzou.

[Hercules]

Whoever has the better day will probably be playing for the winning team.

[knapplc]

The question in the OP is too narrowly focused. Like Nebraska, Missouri is multiple on offense. Their offensive scheme is largely geared towards Gabbert's arm, but that doesn't mean they can't run. They can run - they just don't usually need to. A good analogy is Nebraska's passing offense - we can pass, we just usually don't need to.

 

Against Oklahoma, where Missouri couldn't just throw 60 passes and win, they kept the Sooners off balance with a well-designed attack of nearly equal run/pass (39/42).

 

What we've seen is that both teams can pass and run, and win games doing either. That means that you can shut down Gabbert and lock up all his WRs, but Missouri can still beat you on the ground. You can load up the box and bottle up Martinez/Helu/Burkhead, but Nebraska can still beat you with a vertical passing game.

 

The team that wins will be the team that is most capable of slowing down the other team's primary weapon (Missouri stopping Nebraska's rush, Nebraska stopping Missouri's pass), yet at the same time can slow down their Plan B enough to score on their own.

 

If Missouri cannot stop the Huskers' rushing attack, and we can shut them down through the air, we stand a good chance of winning. If Missouri shuts down our rush and they are able to move the ball through the air like OSU did, they'll likely win.

[junior4949]

I think it really comes down to which team turns the ball over more. Whoever wins the turnover battle most likely wins the game. The best recipe for us to win is long sustained drives keeping Gabbert and company on the sidelines. Unfortunately, I don't know if our OL is up to the task. I just hope it doesn't turn into a shootout. For a while there in the Okie State game, I thought we had Clownahan himself on the sideline.

[Husker Z]

I think it really comes down to which team turns the ball over more. Whoever wins the turnover battle most likely wins the game. The best recipe for us to win is long sustained drives keeping Gabbert and company on the sidelines. Unfortunately, I don't know if our OL is up to the task. I just hope it doesn't turn into a shootout. For a while there in the Okie State game, I thought we had Clownahan himself on the sideline.

 

If Clownahan can come back on Saturday and give us 51 points on offense, I'll welcome him with open arms!

[Billyball]

I'm hoping but not expecting us to get some pressure on gabbert. He. Doesn't run or throw well in panic mode. I also hope some of his high hard passes down the middle are deflected and picked off.

 

For TM, I worry about him coughing up the ball if he gets smacked hard. Mu, did seem to have some hitters for a change. TM has thrived on big holes and outrunning the D and few square hits. If met in the hole by a LB, I fear a fumble.

 

If either qb has a career night, that team will surely win. I am hopiing it's a wash and we win with better RB play and special teams.

[Enhance]

If Gabbert has a bad night I'm feeling confident that Missouri will lose. Just my opinion obviously. That said, the two games Taylor strugled the most in turned into our two worst offensive performances of the season.

[ESPY]

If Gabbert has a bad night I'm feeling confident that Missouri will lose. Just my opinion obviously. That said, the two games Taylor strugled the most in turned into our two worst offensive performances of the season.

Thank you. It's about time somebody came out and said that. Our offense relies a whole bunch on Martinez. His performances so far have affected the entire offense. Of course that's because he is the quarterback. There's no doubt in my mind he needs to have a solid game against that Mizzou D if we expect to do any damage.

[Pedro Guerrero]

Have you even watched Missouri play? At one point on Saturday they had run 28 pass plays and 28 run plays. They made 12 first downs running, 12 passing and netted 178 yards on the ground. It's the most balanced offense in Pinkel's time at Mizzou.

 

If you go off of the total plays run and the run/pass percentages of those plays this team is not the most balanced since Pinkel has been at Mizzou. I only looked at stats since 2004 though. But using those stats only one other year has the percentages been worse then they are this year. This year out of the 506 plays Mizzou has run they have passed on 56% of those and ran the ball on 44%. In 2008 it was 42% run and 58% pass. In 2006 they ran the ball 49.5% of the time and passed 50.5% of the time. In 2005 it was 52% run to 48% pass, in 2007 it was 48% run to 52% pass and in 2009 it was 49% run to 51% pass. So technically those seasons used a more balanced attack then the one this year. I will give you the offensive strategy used against OU was balanced though with 39 runs and 42 passes.

 

FWIW: 2004 was 55% run to 45% pass.

 

Keep in mind that I have only watched one Mizzou game all year and that was against Illinois so I can only speak from looking at the stats.

[Joe_5700]

I think it really comes down to which team turns the ball over more. Whoever wins the turnover battle most likely wins the game. The best recipe for us to win is long sustained drives keeping Gabbert and company on the sidelines. Unfortunately, I don't know if our OL is up to the task. I just hope it doesn't turn into a shootout. For a while there in the Okie State game, I thought we had Clownahan himself on the sideline.

 

If Clownahan can come back on Saturday and give us 51 points on offense, I'll welcome him with open arms!

Cosgrove is part of that package, so Missouri would put up 68 on us.

[Enhance]

If Gabbert has a bad night I'm feeling confident that Missouri will lose. Just my opinion obviously. That said, the two games Taylor strugled the most in turned into our two worst offensive performances of the season.

Thank you. It's about time somebody came out and said that. Our offense relies a whole bunch on Martinez. His performances so far have affected the entire offense. Of course that's because he is the quarterback. There's no doubt in my mind he needs to have a solid game against that Mizzou D if we expect to do any damage.

And even more pressure is on Martinez to succeed given the zone-read aspect of our offense. The two times we have mightily struggled to get the zone-read game going, our entire offense (especially our rushing offense) has struggled to get execute.

[TRIPP]

One thing I love about Ne is we usually know how to control big name players. It's those players that we don't expect to do big things that usually hurt us. Texas qb for example. Didn't think he would run so much and it hurt us, but any big name players have all been shut down or slowed down enough.

[mnhusker]

Missery needs to have a better game to win. If both teams play the best they can Nebraska wins this one.