Martinez v. Armstrong

[Ric Flair]

This is worth a read. We've discussed Martinez's penchant for turnovers quite a bit. But his limitations as a passer are pretty staggering. He's basically only accurate on passes of less than 10 yards. So between his limitations as a runner and as a passer, his crazy amount of turnovers, his lacking leadership and his questionable decision making, I'm more than ready to see Armstrong as the starter. We've seen the best Martinez has to offer. Despite the fact that we haven't seen the best from Armstrong, I believe he's still the better option for us.

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1754936-nebraska-football-what-does-taylor-martinez-need-to-show-nfl-scouts-in-2013

[Jason Sitoke]

I really would prefer to have Armstrong out there. I don't think we're in any danger of going on an incredible conference run regardless of who is our QB. Martinez is overall probably a better option at this point, but not by much.

 

What I get a little tired of hearing is how Martinez is 'explosive'. I just don't feel like he's a threat when he's got the ball. Honestly, more than a handful of games (i.e. Ohio St., Michigan, UCLA, Wyoming) he's played in over the last couple years he hasn't even been the most dynamic quarterback on the field. I'd rather have a slippery guy with pocket presence and some elusiveness than a track star at quarterback. Defenses just aren't afraid of TM, and you can see it. He doesn't feel pressure and doesn't break the pocket when he should. Not only that, whether it's because he's hurt or not, he looks more reluctant than Peyton Manning to tuck it and run up the middle. Did anyone notice that UCLA didn't even casually dedicate a linebacker to shadow him in case he runs?

 

I have no qualms with Martinez. The guy has dedicated 3+ years to being as good a quarterback as he possibly can for this team. He just kinda hit a plateau. When he was a sophomore, I was hoping by now he'd be a calm customer when taking his drops, and be big and strong enough to lower his shoulder and make 3 yards where he used to get thrown backwards, perhaps losing the football in the process. It has not happened. When healthy, he's got wide receiver speed: ability to run away from a defense.....not much agility or vision to slash through a defense. If he was a natural pocket passer and possessed this speed...he'd be scary. But he's still a work in progress as a passer, and because he's still relatively early in his development as a passer, he still makes silly mistakes (taking sacks at the worst time, forcing his throws in the middle of the field).

 

This team is still growing (I'm being optimistic), and I'd like to see our RSh Frosh in there at QB growing with them. It's not going to kill our current season, and on the contrary can only help our prospects for next year. We'll no longer have a 'first year starter) going into 2014....we'll have our starting quarterback returning.

[The Dude]

This is worth a read. We've discussed Martinez's penchant for turnovers quite a bit. But his limitations as a passer are pretty staggering. He's basically only accurate on passes of less than 10 yards. So between his limitations as a runner and as a passer, his crazy amount of turnovers, his lacking leadership and his questionable decision making, I'm more than ready to see Armstrong as the starter. We've seen the best Martinez has to offer. Despite the fact that we haven't seen the best from Armstrong, I believe he's still the better option for us.

 

http://bleacherrepor...-scouts-in-2013

I'll give you everything but lacking leadership. Could you expand on that? I think he's been a phenomenal leader.

[Mavric]

Pro for TA:

 

- Much better handling pocket pressure.

The bolded is relatively unsubstantiated (I assume you're comparing TA to TM). The defenses TA has faced have been very poor. TA has done well, don't get me wrong, but that's not a fair comparison to make.

 

The rest I agree with, but I think we should cool the jets on the surgery issue. Though the injury was a very real thing, it sounded a lot like speculation by the broadcaster.

He hasn't had any pressure to handle. Perhaps he can but he hasn't had to.

[Ric Flair]

This is worth a read. We've discussed Martinez's penchant for turnovers quite a bit. But his limitations as a passer are pretty staggering. He's basically only accurate on passes of less than 10 yards. So between his limitations as a runner and as a passer, his crazy amount of turnovers, his lacking leadership and his questionable decision making, I'm more than ready to see Armstrong as the starter. We've seen the best Martinez has to offer. Despite the fact that we haven't seen the best from Armstrong, I believe he's still the better option for us.

 

http://bleacherrepor...-scouts-in-2013

I'll give you everything but lacking leadership. Could you expand on that? I think he's been a phenomenal leader.

 

That's an intangible that's hard/impossible to quantify. So this is really just my opinion. But I don't see the players rallying around him and reacting to him the way I'd like. I don't see him on the sideline working with the receivers and the offense in preparation for the next drive. I don't see him commanding the huddle and demanding the respect of the rest of the offense. I usually see him standing or sitting alone on the sideline and not really even talking to anyone. In the losses and blowouts, I see him on the field with a glazed over expression like he's checked out and looking like he's sulking on the sideline.

 

Now part of that could be that he just has crappy body language, kind of like Eli Manning. But my read on him is that he's not a very effective leader. In a variety of ways, I see the offense responding to Armstrong and Kellogg in ways I haven;t seen them respond to Martinez. Like I said, there's really no way to define that, so it's just the sense that I get and my opinion.

[HuskerUnity]

Agreed ^^^ I don't get tfree32"s comment on the leadership thing at all. Also don't agree with T-Mart only being accurate on passes of less than 10 yards. I don't like his turnover problem, which has been much better this year, and his lack of scrambling ability with pressure, because he does have lateral speed too, which no one say he does. That play against Wisky the the Big 10 Championship play proves that. Reminded me me of the play Crouch pulled off against Missouri which sealed the Heisman for him. I will take a healthy TM over TA for this season, but I think TA has will become the better QB than TM.

 

But I agree with other poster's TA will have competition from Johnny Tebow next season

[Shockley03]

Tommy Armstrong will be fine. Even if newcomer Johnny Stanton shows up next year in a big way, the NFL's Russell Wilson has shown that it can be a win-win by just simply shipping out to another school (transferred out of NC State to Wisconsin) -- so I doubt if Tommy is all that worried about crazy stuff like that anyway. His concern right now is Purdue by the way.

 

Besides, competition is supposed to bring out the very best in all of your players. I've just never liked the way coach Bo Pelini has never given himself to allowing QBs to compete in real-game situations. I remember a season where Nebraska had three guys auditioning for quarterback in Monte Christo, Eric Crouch, and Bobby Newcombe. Now, from out of coach Solich, I liked that!

 

But it's been one-sided for three seasons with Taylor Martinez as the unanimous starter the entire time.

 

He's a handsome guy, and everybody loves him -- and I see and understand that. T-Mart is a likeable guy -- and very blessed athletically. But as a coach, you have to put the team first and find the chemistry that will work on the field. And you need to be fair in each assessment. I prefer coach Dr. Tom Osborne's method any day versus just going with Hollywood charisma as being one of the several deciding factors to select a team's QB.

 

I'm sure Cary Grant might 've made a great college quarterback. Who knows? But he stuck with acting (one of my favorites by the way) while QBs from the 1950s were guys like Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr. You have to choose athletes in the final analysis to run your show.

 

The teams that win championships do. Look at Alabama's A.J. McCarron. He's not the most handsome guy in the world, but check out his girlfriend. She's a winner.

[caveman99]

Armstrong - he doesn't turn the ball over

If he keeps throwing off of his back foot he will, his high throws were not because of the wind. He was simply lucky, throw one like that over the middle and it gets picked. Just ask any NY Giants fan about Eli and high throws.

[caveman99]

This is worth a read. We've discussed Martinez's penchant for turnovers quite a bit. But his limitations as a passer are pretty staggering. He's basically only accurate on passes of less than 10 yards. So between his limitations as a runner and as a passer, his crazy amount of turnovers, his lacking leadership and his questionable decision making, I'm more than ready to see Armstrong as the starter. We've seen the best Martinez has to offer. Despite the fact that we haven't seen the best from Armstrong, I believe he's still the better option for us.

 

http://bleacherrepor...-scouts-in-2013

I'll give you everything but lacking leadership. Could you expand on that? I think he's been a phenomenal leader.

 

That's an intangible that's hard/impossible to quantify. So this is really just my opinion. But I don't see the players rallying around him and reacting to him the way I'd like. I don't see him on the sideline working with the receivers and the offense in preparation for the next drive. I don't see him commanding the huddle and demanding the respect of the rest of the offense. I usually see him standing or sitting alone on the sideline and not really even talking to anyone. In the losses and blowouts, I see him on the field with a glazed over expression like he's checked out and looking like he's sulking on the sideline.

 

Now part of that could be that he just has crappy body language, kind of like Eli Manning. But my read on him is that he's not a very effective leader. In a variety of ways, I see the offense responding to Armstrong and Kellogg in ways I haven;t seen them respond to Martinez. Like I said, there's really no way to define that, so it's just the sense that I get and my opinion.

 

Not sure how you could watch any of the comebacks over the past 2 years and say this, especially with someone like Rex mostly on the sidelines.

[jmfb]

Armstrong had problems making correct read on Zone Read and was very amped on a few simple throws.

 

Still he is a great option.

You should see the reads TM makes on true Zone Read. I talked to someone who worked with Joe Ganz- JG told him TM made the right choice about 1/2 the time

What you saw alot of were NOT Zone Read plays

They were sweep read and power read plays, several of the QB keeps were DESIGNATED keeps. You can tell the way it is blocked and formationed to give the QB the advantage on the play, It may look the same, but it is blocked differently as a keep.

[Malth]

Also don't agree with T-Mart only being accurate on passes of less than 10 yards

 

What is there not to agree with?

 

Once the passes get a little longer, though, things look worse for Martinez. For passes from 10 to 14 yards, Martinez has a completion percentage of 50 percent. That’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

But then things fall through the floor. Martinez completed only 10 percent (!) of passes between 15 and 19 yards and only 16.7 percent of passes from 20 to 24 yards.

[Mavric]

Also don't agree with T-Mart only being accurate on passes of less than 10 yards

 

What is there not to agree with?

 

Once the passes get a little longer, though, things look worse for Martinez. For passes from 10 to 14 yards, Martinez has a completion percentage of 50 percent. That’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

But then things fall through the floor. Martinez completed only 10 percent (!) of passes between 15 and 19 yards and only 16.7 percent of passes from 20 to 24 yards.

I don't know if the stats would change a whole lot but, as has been mentioned before, they only charted three Husker games. As far as I can see, they don't say which ones. I would be a lot more interested if they charted the whole season - as they say they are this year but we might not have a lot of Martinez stats to look at. One bad game out of three could really skew the results, particularly if the Iowa game or some other weather factor was involved.

 

Judging by the small sample size, it is very likely that they charted Martinez throwing 10 passes 15-19 yards, 6 passes 20-24, 3 passes 25-29 and 2 passes each 30-34 and 35-39. That is not a lot to go from, especially at the longer distances. He appears to have been 1-10 from 15-19 yards and 1-6 from 20-24. Obviously not great. But if he completed just one more pass from 20-24, he jumps to 33% and into the same category as Tahj Boyd, Landry Jones, Geno Smith and Johnny Football. That's not bad company.

[Mavric]

Something for the "condensed playbook" skeptics:

 

Know what was really smart? That Beck designed a game plan in Nebraska's 39-19 victory against Illinois that gave quarterback Tommy Armstrong easy throws from start to finish. Most of them off play-action. All of them provided Armstrong — who usually threw on his toes without following through with his lead foot — an open option down the middle or to his strong, right side.

If Armstrong threw left the entire game, my amateur review of the game didn't see it. If he did, it had to have been by a few feet at best. And the two biggest option plays — pitches to Ameer Abdullah — were both to Armstrong's right, too.

 

After rewatching the win, I think it's time to be a little more realistic about Armstrong's play. He's gifted, sturdy — and still a redshirt freshman.

 

OWH McKewon Article

[Mavric]

From the same article:

 

But Armstrong would have to make a decent leap in the rest of October to be a full-on November quarterback who can beat three of the Big Ten's five best defenses. Don't kid yourself: As rickety as this Husker thing has looked in 2013, coach Bo Pelini has designs on winning them all. Twelve passes won't beat Michigan. Won't beat Michigan State.

And Taylor Martinez, for all the arrows thrown at him, made “the leap,” at the very latest, last year, when he beat those defenses, often with second-half comebacks.

 

Were there plays Saturday a healthy Martinez would have made that Armstrong didn't? Yes. Martinez scores a long touchdown on that zone-read keeper in the first half. He likely keeps that fourth-down throw to Trey Foster lower and out of the wind so Foster can catch it easier. There are plays Martinez can run, because of experience, that Armstrong hasn't mastered yet.

[Enhance]

I don't know if the stats would change a whole lot but, as has been mentioned before, they only charted three Husker games.

Exactly. That study was linked in another thread yesterday or the day before, and it's been linked a few times in recent weeks. Their data collection is extremely biased, judging some teams with 12 games worth of data, but the vast majority (including Nebraska) by only a handful of games or less. But, they then compare them on the same scale.

 

The article itself even says their data should not be used to draw any real conclusions from.

 

IMHO it's a joke.