Another Appreciation of Tommy's Progress

[Enhance]

Tommy Armstrong is not a problem on this team. Yes, he's limited, but he makes a lot of plays out there. I wish the coaches would use him more in the run game, but that's not Langsdorf's/Riley's strength in coaching.

He's an asset that just needs to be utilized properly. I think he has thrown a few passes shy of 50 a couple times in his career, USC last year and at least one this year IIRC. Both those times the team has lost. While I don't think that's all on TA, we tend to do succeed when he's getting about ~10 carries and the ground game is successful. He's not the kind of guy you want throwing 40 or more times a game in my opinion.

 

[Husker John]

Tommy's improvement in passing is amazing............coaches need to make him a duel threat and let him run.......

 

[Thanks_Tom RR]

This season, TA has 10 TD (6 passing, 4 rushing) with no INT in the 4th quarter.

 

[husker07]

In the words of Bo Pelini, "he did some good things" on Saturday. He still has to be better and more importantly consistent if he ever wants to take this team anywhere. If he even hit 10% more of his passes this offense would be on a different level. Just gotta hit whats there.

 

[Enhance]

In the words of Bo Pelini, "he did some good things" on Saturday. He still has to be better and more importantly consistent if he ever wants to take this team anywhere. If he even hit 10% more of his passes this offense would be on a different level. Just gotta hit whats there.

Hate to be "that" guy but 10 percent is a huge performance improvement that any offense would benefit from significantly. That's kind of like saying 'man if Player X ran for another 1,000 yards he'd be on a different level."

A 5 percent increase this season would've been ideal and reasonable, imho, to get him to around 58 percent compared to last year's 53. 10 percent would've been astronomical.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

you don't want your starting QB toting the rock too much......for all the good plays Tommie makes, Carriker is right......we all see it, he still throws the ball off his back foot instead of stepping into his throws......

he would be a 60% passer if he could just stop with the bad habit......that and throwing into coverage......

I am so sick of this argument. Tommy can just as easily take a hit in the pocket than he can doing some running in the open field. I am not calling for 15-20 carries by Tommy, but 6-8 designed QB runs along with another 2-3 on QB scrambles (on designed pass plays) would be nice to see. Defense is harder to play when it's forced to play 11 on 11.

What you're describing -- 6 to 8 designed QB runs with another 2-3 on improvised QB scrambles is pretty much what Armstrong does every game.

Tommy also tends to avoid a lot of sure rushing yards, convinced he can make the homerun throw instead. That's his choice. The coaches have said they'd like him to exploit more of those scrambles rather than forcing the passes, but he completes just enough of those miracle throws to make his case.