LBs, D-Line, O-line, and Martinez are not going to get it done

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I've been waiting for somebody to blame Martinez!

 

Because I'm sure Ron Kellogg III or wait, Brion Carnes, (you wanted Brion Carnes in right?) would've done better.

 

Taylor had no time to throw, to go through his reads. If you want to blame anyone for that, blame the offensive line, who got out played in the latter stages of that game. Don't blame Martinez.

[roundegotrip]

Second half play calling reminded me of the Wisconsin game last year... Martinez getting pressured? Throw throw throw throw throw. Abdullah was averaging 7+ per carry (so was Heard on his three carries). Where was Cross? Really poor adjustments.

 

There's more than one way to punish a defense that's playing with their ears pinned back every down, and regardless of what Taylor did last week, regardless of Burkhead's injury, the offensive strength of this team is still running the football.

 

Martinez needed more protection and we needed to run the football more. Should have gone 1 TE 2 backs for most of the second half.

[Enhance]

Of all the things that made Nebraska lose last night, Martinez was one of the most irrelevant. If you think Martinez is too inconsistent to win, you didn't consider the other factors in yesterday's game.

 

For example, Nebula brought up a pretty good point about our offensive line. The line played pretty well in the first half yesterday. Martinez had time to throw and the line was opening up holes for our backs. One of the announcers said last night that the first seven yards of a run are because of the offensive line, and anything after that is thanks to the receivers blocking. If we accept that, Abdullah was averaging over seven YPC in the first half. But, in the second half, the demoralization coupled with our lack of depth on the line (thanks to Klachko and Moore being gone) really hurt us. We only ran 67 plays yesterday, in comparison to 79 the week before. Nobody here would say our line looked tired against USM, but that they looked really tired against UCLA.

 

We lost the game yesterday because our defensive line is a sieve, a sieve that allowed UCLA to average 6.1 YPC. Over 400 yards of offense and 30 points should have been enough to beat UCLA, as someone pointed out. Our defense made this impossible to accomplish.

 

Martinez is not a major problem at Nebraska, and people need to realize this. Anybody who think he is a big problem has a vendetta and has no idea what they're talking about.

[zoogs]

Oh, I don't know. I think last night gave us good reason to be tempered about Taylor. We couldn't get going in the 2nd half and part of that was Taylor was not able to pose a threat via the air. We had to lean on the ground game and throw as a changeup. When we tried to commit to the throw - which we could not afford to do, Beck! - our offense sputtered, badly.

 

There are also two big, big mistakes Taylor made at the end of the game. The ZR that led to the safety that put UCLA on top, and the pick, which was quite an awful throw regardless of situation. Both were even worse playcalls I would argue in this case. But there are plenty of ways to fudge up, especially that later play, without the disastrous result. Taylor came quite close to another near-diaster when he tried to toss the ball as he was going down for a sack. He's very lucky he didn't get it in time before his knee went down, because that one was picked as well.

[Enhance]

It was nothing more or less than a player watching his team fall apart around him and trying to do whatever he could to win the game. The look on Martinez' face last night told the story perfectly. Martinez was put in a position by the coaches and players to fail - the zone read is Beck's fault, as was the sh*t play calling at Wisconsin last year. The interception was a bad throw, I'll give you that, but I think our offense (especially Martinez) did well enough to win that game yesterday.

 

Our defense had sparks of good things in the second half, but overall, they were ferociously abysmal. Whaley once again showed his fundamentals are lacking, evidenced by his poor tackling. He also consistently got beat in pass protection, including a slip that led to a touchdown. We could have batted down a first half touchdown, instead, their receiver came down with it at the goal line. Nebraska was given handfuls of chances to make a play defensively last night, and they let UCLA take advantage of those chances rather than make plays.

 

This loss is 80% on the defense, 20% on the offense, and that might even be lowballing the defensive responsibility.

[Treand3]

The lack of tackling and pursuit of the front 7 killed us. This loss was not on Tmart. Beck as an offensive coordinator ought to have a much better sense of seeing that an aggressive defense was sending extra guys every other play would rattle TM. I get that Beck wants to have a QB that can throw but he has to realize what he has. Sadly as others that said it is shades of the Wisconsin game all over again. As soon as things were being done out of the I Form, we were able to get good to great yardage more often than not. Also, it gave our defense time to rest and catch their breath as well as keeping UCLA off the field on offense. That's why I'm not an offensive coordinator and probably will never be one.

 

I don't even need to speak on the defense as everyone has it covered. Pathetic

[Treand3]

It was nothing more or less than a player watching his team fall apart around him and trying to do whatever he could to win the game. The look on Martinez' face last night told the story perfectly. Martinez was put in a position by the coaches and players to fail - the zone read is Beck's fault, as was the sh*t play calling at Wisconsin last year. The interception was a bad throw, I'll give you that, but I think our offense (especially Martinez) did well enough to win that game yesterday.

 

Our defense had sparks of good things in the second half, but overall, they were ferociously abysmal. Whaley once again showed his fundamentals are lacking, evidenced by his poor tackling. He also consistently got beat in pass protection, including a slip that led to a touchdown. We could have batted down a first half touchdown, instead, their receiver came down with it at the goal line. Nebraska was given handfuls of chances to make a play defensively last night, and they let UCLA take advantage of those chances rather than make plays.

 

This loss is 80% on the defense, 20% on the offense, and that might even be lowballing the defensive responsibility.

 

If our defense had half the night UCLA did on defense, we win but barely. A complete 180 degree difference solid win. Oh well would, shoulda, coulda.

[gobiggergoredder]

MARTINEZ IS THE LEAST OF OUR PROBLEMS RIGHT NOW

 

I think his jitters in the pocket since the start of game limited what was available throughout the rest of the game. He looked like Freshman year to me. I hope we can now put the throwing motion talk to rest. He just needs to settle down. He'll be fine.

[chamrocck]

Martinez is not a major problem at Nebraska, and people need to realize this. Anybody who think he is a big problem has a vendetta and has no idea what they're talking about.

TMart is not the problem or anywhere near the problem. Who is going to come in and perform at even 75% of his level? He has been improving and deserves credit. The offense put up 30 points on the road without Rex and Maher shanking it all over the place. Do you really think any of the top-tier programs give up even 10-13 points to UCLA? The defense is the problem and until we play downhill we will be in these high-scoring affairs where 30 is not enough to win. TMart will win some but can't win them all.

[JTrain]

After all these games with Taylor, I'm still not convinced he is actually reading anything on the majority of the zone read plays we run.

 

If you watch the 92-yard touchdown, it's really hard to say what that DE is doing up the point Taylor pulls the ball out. It certainly was not clear to me, even with the benefit of watching it from the TV angle and multiple times, that the DE was crashing inside to cut off Abdullah. We say that Taylor made the "right" read on the touchdown and the "wrong" read on the safety, but to me he just guessed on both. Or maybe guess isn't the right word-- his anticipatory thoughts of what he expected to happen overrode his actual sense perceptions in the split second when he was forced to make the decision. It's a really easy thing to have happen (anyone that sucks as much as I do at videogame passing will understand this all too well).

[ZRod]

I think the safety was, to start with, a terrible play call. Then Taylor wanting to make something happen and put the game on his shoulders and that bit him hard.

[AFhusker]

Did you watch the second half? The defense only gave up 10 points and Nebraska could not score a touchdown. Both the defensive front 7 and o-line were terrible. Martinez completed 54% of his passes.

 

Yep. Two 100 yard rushers and nearly 200 yards passing with no false starts or holding calls...utterly horrible. But sure, completely ignore the fact that our defense gave up over 600 yards and couldn't stop UCLA when it counted.

 

A lot of those bad passes were because of barney's bitches whiffing on blocks, abdoullah saved TMart on several occasions after the OL whiffed.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

And nevermind that Beck thinks Taylor is Drew Brees or Payton Manning right now since he worked on his technique in the off-season. We have the speed and size to run the ball, so lets keep pounding that square peg into that round hole? Amazing...............

[HUSKER FREAK]

I don't know but I think that Bo is going to have to revisit his two gap as a whole with his wanting players to a year or two to learn the system. I would normally agree with what Bo is doing but i think that the veterans on the front seven minus a couple need to be replaced by the younger talent that came in. And, if that means simplifing the two gap so they will succeed then so be it. The Offense will be fine. I think we paniced from the top of coaching to the players in the end. But, the front seven HAS to be fixed. I said after the Southern Miss game and going into this one that we will have a lot of trouble if they are running the zone read. They were just to fast for us and the missed tackles were caused mostly by that as well.

[krc1995]

I don't get it, run the ball with success so then you abandon it in the 2nd half? Except for the one drive that we did run it right down the field in like 7 plays, only to whiff the kick. By trying to be unpredictable Beck is being very predictable. Maybe Cross to switch to LB so we can have some talent there