Carnes Starter?

[Lyons in the Sea of Red.]

At the same time, last year's offense that was "just for Taylor" was designed by a man rooted in west-coast principles being asked to design a run-heavy spread attack to fit a quarterback that he had probably never expected to use under "his" system.

 

Beck's roots are in the spread as opposed to the west-coast, which is why I feel better about Beck's offense. Beck is being asked to run an offense he knows well, as opposed to being asked to run an offense he doesn't.

 

I would argue it's more like last year we had a "just for Taylor" wildcat package of plays that had to become the entire offense in a hurry midway through fall camp. We either took that and expanded it a little, or took whatever we had installed and junked a lot of it, to hit the season running with the 'just for Taylor' offense.

 

This year, we take what we know from last year and craft an offense from the beginning especially for him.

I think that needs to start in the trenches. We desperately need a solid O line.

[Hunter94]

At the same time, last year's offense that was "just for Taylor" was designed by a man rooted in west-coast principles being asked to design a run-heavy spread attack to fit a quarterback that he had probably never expected to use under "his" system.

 

Beck's roots are in the spread as opposed to the west-coast, which is why I feel better about Beck's offense. Beck is being asked to run an offense he knows well, as opposed to being asked to run an offense he doesn't.

 

I would argue it's more like last year we had a "just for Taylor" wildcat package of plays that had to become the entire offense in a hurry midway through fall camp. We either took that and expanded it a little, or took whatever we had installed and junked a lot of it, to hit the season running with the 'just for Taylor' offense.

 

This year, we take what we know from last year and craft an offense from the beginning especially for him.

 

 

whoa now.......let's not get carried away here. to do that is essentially pulling a Watson, if the kid gets hurt again, which is likely, you better have more to go to than the damn zone read, which Texas and SDSU shut down. i would hope Beck's planning is a little more diverse than being "Taylor-made".

[zoogs]

I don't think we need to worry about that angle. Remember, #1 and #2 went down last year at the same time, and in the one game where Cody was prepared for as the starter all week, he did pretty well in. I'm referring to CU and not ISU, because IIRC there was some insinuation that coaches didn't let Cody run what he was most comfortable doing even when he raised that point to them.

 

I think it's more of an observation that this year doesn't seem to be a year where you have a quarterback competition, but rather one where there's an entrenched starter and we're forging ahead with him. Other guys can make it interesting but Taylor's the man right now. Though you're right, if Cody is pressed into service, who knows if it's going to be an offense that is suited to maximize his skills. My guess is it would not be at all, given how things look right now.

[holvy83]

I was not at the Spring game, nor did I listen to it, but just from what I am reading sounds like Carnes had a good day, for a scrimmage... I am not going to buy into the hype just b/c he played better than Cody and Taylor for 1 day. Unless he has been kicking their butts all spring, I still see this as the Taylor and Cody show unless they both forget how to put on their helmets come fall. If Carnes is all he is cracked up to be then we will wait to see who steps out on to the field the starter for the first game just like last year.

[JTrain]

Keep in mind two things, though, when you consider whether Carnes can challenge this fall:

 

1) We scrapped the old offense, and though the new one is very similar, all 3 guys are learning a new system. So, Carnes theoretically could pick it up faster than the other two, even though they've been here longer.

 

2) Taylor was not 100% today, and it could be quite a while until he actually is. What if this turns into one of those nagging injuries that follows a guy around his entire career? God forbid, but it could happen. Is a gimpy Martinez really the best choice to run our offense? We saw what it looked like at the tail end of the year, and it was not pretty for our offense.

 

Regarding #1 - this offense is basically being tailor-made for Taylor. If he doesn't have the best grasp of this offense of all our QBs, he'll never start another game.

 

#2 - This is a good point. I would hope that Carnes progresses well enough to be able to functionally lead this team if Martinez goes through another injury spell. If not... I'm not sure we can succeed with Cody.

 

Last year's offense was just for Taylor as well. When we ran into a team with an athletic defense and a few game films, it was pretty ugly (Texas).

 

There's a reason nobody else recruited him at QB, and it isn't because we found a hidden gem nobody else knew about. I don't really envision him improving much in the most important areas (mechanics, pocket poise, making reads, etc.). I could be wrong. But winning the Big 10 without a passing game will be really tough.

 

I know he hasn't played a snap of college football, but Carnes sure looks like a solid passer. Not sure how he'd perform overall against the likes of OSU and Wisconsin, but I don't think we should rule out using him this season.

 

 

Oh Jeeez....I've heard that 10,000 times. What the use....

 

But hey, do ya think maybe, just "maybe" our wrs dropping about ten passes (quite possibly 2 or 3 for TDs) just might have had something to do with us losing to Texas? But nahhhh...of course not, Tmart sucks!!

 

 

Point taken, but Texas had missed opportunities as well. Bottom line is Martinez has not shown any consistent passing ability. I'm just not sure that any kind of offense you can install (regardless of who your OC is) will consistently perform against top 40 defenses when your QB is so mediocre in the passing game. Unless of course you have a freakishly good O-line, which we don't.

[zoogs]

We took a couple of early shots that exposed Texas with Taylor, but by and large he was completely shut down by Muschamp's defense. There was a reason he was replaced. We didn't connect on anything that day, but those guys had Taylor's number for the most part. Remember when Zac went in, the Texas defenders started saying to each other, "they're passing, they're passing!"

 

This has more to do with the awareness and sharpness of the QB than just the defense's athletic ability, in my opinion. It's why an elite DC like Muschamp could really hurt us and we had to count on the couple of chances we could surprise them, to grind out a victory.

[GMoose]

Keep in mind two things, though, when you consider whether Carnes can challenge this fall:

 

1) We scrapped the old offense, and though the new one is very similar, all 3 guys are learning a new system. So, Carnes theoretically could pick it up faster than the other two, even though they've been here longer.

 

2) Taylor was not 100% today, and it could be quite a while until he actually is. What if this turns into one of those nagging injuries that follows a guy around his entire career? God forbid, but it could happen. Is a gimpy Martinez really the best choice to run our offense? We saw what it looked like at the tail end of the year, and it was not pretty for our offense.

 

Regarding #1 - this offense is basically being tailor-made for Taylor. If he doesn't have the best grasp of this offense of all our QBs, he'll never start another game.

 

#2 - This is a good point. I would hope that Carnes progresses well enough to be able to functionally lead this team if Martinez goes through another injury spell. If not... I'm not sure we can succeed with Cody.

 

Last year's offense was just for Taylor as well. When we ran into a team with an athletic defense and a few game films, it was pretty ugly (Texas).

 

There's a reason nobody else recruited him at QB, and it isn't because we found a hidden gem nobody else knew about. I don't really envision him improving much in the most important areas (mechanics, pocket poise, making reads, etc.). I could be wrong. But winning the Big 10 without a passing game will be really tough.

 

I know he hasn't played a snap of college football, but Carnes sure looks like a solid passer. Not sure how he'd perform overall against the likes of OSU and Wisconsin, but I don't think we should rule out using him this season.

 

 

Oh Jeeez....I've heard that 10,000 times. What the use....

 

But hey, do ya think maybe, just "maybe" our wrs dropping about ten passes (quite possibly 2 or 3 for TDs) just might have had something to do with us losing to Texas? But nahhhh...of course not, Tmart sucks!!

 

 

Point taken, but Texas had missed opportunities as well. Bottom line is Martinez has not shown any consistent passing ability. I'm just not sure that any kind of offense you can install (regardless of who your OC is) will consistently perform against top 40 defenses when your QB is so mediocre in the passing game. Unless of course you have a freakishly good O-line, which we don't.

Bingo. When we faced teams with a good enough defense to stop the run, it was all over but the swearing. Hell, every time Martinez threw a pass against UT it made me more nervous than when Lee was throwing against them in '09. When our ability to run the ball gets stopped, our offense stops.

[Hercules]

We took a couple of early shots that exposed Texas with Taylor, but by and large he was completely shut down by Muschamp's defense. There was a reason he was replaced. We didn't connect on anything that day, but those guys had Taylor's number for the most part. Remember when Zac went in, the Texas defenders started saying to each other, "they're passing, they're passing!"

 

This has more to do with the awareness and sharpness of the QB than just the defense's athletic ability, in my opinion. It's why an elite DC like Muschamp could really hurt us and we had to count on the couple of chances we could surprise them, to grind out a victory.

 

I really wish people would stop with the Texas game. If our receivers had just shown they could catch the ball when it hit them in the hands, Texas would have had to respect our passing game and they would have backed off our running game. That would have opened up our running game, and they would have suffered the same fate as Kansas State before them. We wouldn't have needed to grind out a victory, we would have won by 30.

[BigWillie]

I am not going to buy into the hype just b/c he played better than Cody and Taylor for 1 day.

 

One day, in a scrimmage, in August, made Taylor the starter. Before that, he was the 3rd QB on the team.

 

Unless he has been kicking their butts all spring..

 

He has. It wasn't just the spring game where Brion has looked like the best QB on our team.

[Hercules]

I am not going to buy into the hype just b/c he played better than Cody and Taylor for 1 day.

 

One day, in a scrimmage, in August, made Taylor the starter. Before that, he was the 3rd QB on the team.

 

Unless he has been kicking their butts all spring..

 

He has. It wasn't just the spring game where Brion has looked like the best QB on our team.

 

If he's the best QB, then he'll show it on the field in, you know, an actual game.

[Jeremy]

Yeah, I remember the spring games where guys like Joe Dailey, Pat Witt, and LaTravis Washington were all the second coming of Brett Favre and Danny Wuerfel.

 

You can't judge much of anything by the flippin' spring game, except maybe the kickers and punters, and they looked pretty good, so we've got that going for us.

 

September 3rd, fellow fans - that's when we learn real things about this team.

[GMoose]

We took a couple of early shots that exposed Texas with Taylor, but by and large he was completely shut down by Muschamp's defense. There was a reason he was replaced. We didn't connect on anything that day, but those guys had Taylor's number for the most part. Remember when Zac went in, the Texas defenders started saying to each other, "they're passing, they're passing!"

 

This has more to do with the awareness and sharpness of the QB than just the defense's athletic ability, in my opinion. It's why an elite DC like Muschamp could really hurt us and we had to count on the couple of chances we could surprise them, to grind out a victory.

 

I really wish people would stop with the Texas game. If our receivers had just shown they could catch the ball when it hit them in the hands, Texas would have had to respect our passing game and they would have backed off our running game. That would have opened up our running game, and they would have suffered the same fate as Kansas State before them. We wouldn't have needed to grind out a victory, we would have won by 30.

Yes, our WRs dropped some balls in that game, but to say that if those balls hadn't been dropped we win by 30? Whoa.

 

It's not like the Texas game was the only time his skills were questioned. How about when he was useless against SDSU, Missouri, aTm, and Oklahoma? The only reason people are singling out the UT game is because they were the most talented defense we played, and he was completely hapless against them. Besides Oklahoma, those other teams listed above had mediocre defenses; all they had to do was prepare correctly.

[bshirt]

We took a couple of early shots that exposed Texas with Taylor, but by and large he was completely shut down by Muschamp's defense. There was a reason he was replaced. We didn't connect on anything that day, but those guys had Taylor's number for the most part. Remember when Zac went in, the Texas defenders started saying to each other, "they're passing, they're passing!"

 

This has more to do with the awareness and sharpness of the QB than just the defense's athletic ability, in my opinion. It's why an elite DC like Muschamp could really hurt us and we had to count on the couple of chances we could surprise them, to grind out a victory.

 

I really wish people would stop with the Texas game. If our receivers had just shown they could catch the ball when it hit them in the hands, Texas would have had to respect our passing game and they would have backed off our running game. That would have opened up our running game, and they would have suffered the same fate as Kansas State before them. We wouldn't have needed to grind out a victory, we would have won by 30.

 

 

Exactly.

 

Ted's wrs dropped Tmarts & Lee's passes all game long so of course as sure as the sun comes up each morning.....the haters repeatably pin the loss on Tmart. Makes perfect sense.

[Hercules]

We took a couple of early shots that exposed Texas with Taylor, but by and large he was completely shut down by Muschamp's defense. There was a reason he was replaced. We didn't connect on anything that day, but those guys had Taylor's number for the most part. Remember when Zac went in, the Texas defenders started saying to each other, "they're passing, they're passing!"

 

This has more to do with the awareness and sharpness of the QB than just the defense's athletic ability, in my opinion. It's why an elite DC like Muschamp could really hurt us and we had to count on the couple of chances we could surprise them, to grind out a victory.

 

I really wish people would stop with the Texas game. If our receivers had just shown they could catch the ball when it hit them in the hands, Texas would have had to respect our passing game and they would have backed off our running game. That would have opened up our running game, and they would have suffered the same fate as Kansas State before them. We wouldn't have needed to grind out a victory, we would have won by 30.

Yes, our WRs dropped some balls in that game, but to say that if those balls hadn't been dropped we win by 30? Whoa.

 

It's not like the Texas game was the only time his skills were questioned. How about when he was useless against SDSU, Missouri, aTm, and Oklahoma? The only reason people are singling out the UT game is because they were the most talented defense we played, and he was completely hapless against them. Besides Oklahoma, those other teams listed above had mediocre defenses; all they had to do was prepare correctly.

 

Everybody on offense was completely hapless against SDSU, A&M, and OU. Against Missouri, they sold out to stop Martinez, so Helu had a field day. Against OSU, they sold out to stop our run, so Martinez had a field day throwing the ball. Against A&M and OU, Martinez was hurt. Against UT, they sold out to stop our run, so Martinez threw the ball, hit our receivers in their brick-like hands, and they dropped the ball. So we lost.

 

We would have run away with the UT game had our receivers just caught the stupid ball. They couldn't defend our whole offense - so they sold out to stop the run and hoped we wouldn't be able to pass. They were right, but not because Martinez played poorly - it was beause we dropped EIGHT passes, THREE of which should have been TDs. Catch those balls, and UT has to change their defense, and our whole offense gets opened up. Game over.

[The Dude]

It's hilarious people still put the Texas loss on Taylor. Ridiculous.