For Better or Worse...NEB is Sticking with Tommy Armstrong

[Count 'Bility]

I know it's not what we do, but I would just like to see the tempo slowed down. Slow it weigh down. Limit the number of plays ran by both the offense and the defense. We can still run our style, be we seriously need to start considering grinding the tempo of the game into the ground, and give us the mindset of getting back to grind it out football.

 

[zoogs]

Maybe I'm missing what others are seeing but I don't get all the praise of TA's "pocket presence". He looked good the first couple games when there was absolutely no pass rush but he has been below average the last couple games when he gets pressured. For sure two of his picks yesterday were mainly because he panicked and was trying to duck away from pressure as he threw and didn't look where he was throwing.

I draw a distinction between feeling the pressure and moving around in the pocket, and making the right read on where to throw. Tommy does the former well, but you're right that two of his picks, he had done the good part and then made a poor call on a throw that wasn't there.

The huge upside with Tommy is that he also has pretty solid throwing form. He can make the throws. It's the decisions.

This is a big difference between Tommy and freshman Taylor, who was not only raw in terms of reads and decision-making, but also poor in form, stuff that he's put in an enormous amount of work to shore up over the years. Even this year Taylor hasn't looked that good with his pocket awareness, at least that my short memory can remember.

 

[EZ-E]

Maybe I'm missing what others are seeing but I don't get all the praise of TA's "pocket presence". He looked good the first couple games when there was absolutely no pass rush but he has been below average the last couple games when he gets pressured. For sure two of his picks yesterday were mainly because he panicked and was trying to duck away from pressure as he threw and didn't look where he was throwing.

I draw a distinction between feeling the pressure and moving around in the pocket, and making the right read on where to throw. Tommy does the former well, but you're right that two of his picks, he had done the good part and then made a poor call on a throw that wasn't there.

The huge upside with Tommy is that he also has pretty solid throwing form. He can make the throws. It's the decisions.

This is a big difference between Tommy and freshman Taylor, who was not only raw in terms of reads and decision-making, but also poor in form, stuff that he's put in an enormous amount of work to shore up over the years. Even this year Taylor hasn't looked that good with his pocket awareness, at least that my short memory can remember.

Took the words out of my mouth zoogies

 

[Mavric]

Maybe I'm missing what others are seeing but I don't get all the praise of TA's "pocket presence". He looked good the first couple games when there was absolutely no pass rush but he has been below average the last couple games when he gets pressured. For sure two of his picks yesterday were mainly because he panicked and was trying to duck away from pressure as he threw and didn't look where he was throwing.

I draw a distinction between feeling the pressure and moving around in the pocket, and making the right read on where to throw. Tommy does the former well, but you're right that two of his picks, he had done the good part and then made a poor call on a throw that wasn't there.

The huge upside with Tommy is that he also has pretty solid throwing form. He can make the throws. It's the decisions.

This is a big difference between Tommy and freshman Taylor, who was not only raw in terms of reads and decision-making, but also poor in form, stuff that he's put in an enormous amount of work to shore up over the years. Even this year Taylor hasn't looked that good with his pocket awareness, at least that my short memory can remember.

It's all well and good to have good form but it only counts if you know how to use it. As I said, part of the problem on a couple of his picks was he totally bailed out and looked terrible throwing it. And even the best form doesn't really do you any good if you're not making good decisions with it. Martinez threw seven INTs his entire freshman year. TA has six and has maybe played three games considering he's splitting time.

 

[tmfr15]

Tommy is a fine QB. He plays at times like a crafty vet, just talking mainly about demeanor. Also has some nice crafty running ability on the pure option run with the fake pitch or a well timed pitch. That's not easy. We all realize the art behind option football. As far as pocket presence, he has it and then he doesn't. It's just typical young QB stuff there. He needs to work on that going forward and he will. No problem. Tommy is going to continue to develop and I hope he gets a good push in the QB room over the off season to maintain and build on his advantage over Stanton and, possibly, Darlington, if he gets cleared to continue football.

For now, if Tommy has to play, and it looks like that with T-Mart's myriad of injuries, let's make the most of it. And do like we did Saturday and take advantage of what RKIII can do as well.

I got to feel for T-Mart. He is great when he is healthy. He is just not healthy right now.

 

[Enhance]

TA is just progressing a little slower in the passing game, which is fine as he's a freshman. He'll get better as he looks at the film and understands the playbook more. In the meantime, I agree with whoever said up above that the way we use TA needs to be intelligent. Get the ball out of his hands quickly, give him easy plays that he knows well and rely on the man who has done so much for us this season already - Abdullah.

I know we were down Saturday and in need of quick scores, but I'll say with TA what I said with TM when he was a freshman. It's not smart to have him chucking the ball around 30 plays a game. We had 92 plays Saturday and TA threw 29 of those plays. And guess what - we have one running back averaging 7.1 yards per rush and two other running backs average 5+ yards per rush. If that's not enough incentive to use your running backs more then I really don't know what is.

We have some of the best receivers we've ever had, but we're not in a position to be trying to get the ball to them 30 times a game (or more if you count Kellogg's 13ish pass attempts from last weekend). We're just not. I think TA has shown that even with his talent he's prone to throwing a bad ball. Six INT's in his last two starts. Really excited for what this kid could do one day but until he's able to make the decisions they need him to make, rely on that running game.

 

[Danimal]

You need to go with Tommy at this point. If what we're hearing about Taylor's injuries are true, his career is already over, "day to day" malarky notwithstanding. However, knowing that Tommy is himself a walking interception machine, you need to really plan how the receivers are going to get touches. It can't be by forcing a freshman to become a drop back passer on the road against Michigan. Screens, sweeps, quick routes, play action, pass off the option game. There's your assortment of pass plays. Otherwise, feed Ameer.

You need to go with Tommy at this point. If what we're hearing about Taylor's injuries are true, his career is already over, "day to day" malarky notwithstanding. However, knowing that Tommy is himself a walking interception machine, you need to really plan how the receivers are going to get touches. It can't be by forcing a freshman to become a drop back passer on the road against Michigan. Screens, sweeps, quick routes, play action, pass off the option game. There's your assortment of pass plays. Otherwise, feed Ameer.

THIS

 

[Blackshirt96]

Is Taylor healthy enough to play at Ann Arbor? I didn't think he was healthy enough to play against Minnesota. I just hope that if Bo does play Taylor that he does so very sparingly. We have three young men who can rotate. Why Bo doesn't do that is beyond me.

I have heard on multiple sources...2 of his toes are fractured, one dislocated.......

He shouldn't be playing, period....that type of damage takes months to heal.....plain and simple. I feel really really bad for the guy, but he can't be playing.

I've heard the same & would add it was self inflected (kicked a locker)

 

[TGHusker]

One thing I thought TA did well was running the option - good lateral moves, made some great cuts to avoid tacklers and made some timely pitches. He reminded me a bit of that other Tommie in our QB history. There were a few blown reads but it showed the potential. He seemed more natural at it than TM.

 

[VectorVictor]

Maybe I'm missing what others are seeing but I don't get all the praise of TA's "pocket presence". He looked good the first couple games when there was absolutely no pass rush but he has been below average the last couple games when he gets pressured. For sure two of his picks yesterday were mainly because he panicked and was trying to duck away from pressure as he threw and didn't look where he was throwing.

I draw a distinction between feeling the pressure and moving around in the pocket, and making the right read on where to throw. Tommy does the former well, but you're right that two of his picks, he had done the good part and then made a poor call on a throw that wasn't there.

The huge upside with Tommy is that he also has pretty solid throwing form. He can make the throws. It's the decisions.

This is a big difference between Tommy and freshman Taylor, who was not only raw in terms of reads and decision-making, but also poor in form, stuff that he's put in an enormous amount of work to shore up over the years. Even this year Taylor hasn't looked that good with his pocket awareness, at least that my short memory can remember.

I would also add that the types of throws Beck is asking TA to make are not high percentage throws, which suggests they believe TA has the skills already to complete them...just probably not the confidence or vision (yet).

However, I don't see why Beck wouldn't call for more high percentage throws just to build confidence and get TA comfortable. A lot of the downfield stuff was off, and the outsides were available for quick slants, screens, etc., which would help with the problem of NW stacking the box.

 

[Husker John]

Gotta go with Tommy as long as Taylor's hurting. Sure, Tommy will make some mistakes because he's still learning, but he gets good grades for his overall performance.

 

[Chaddyboxer]

And to the post above, you don't need mobility if you can feel the pressure and move around in the pocket as these guys did.

What I have noticed a lot is that it appears that both TA and RK3 have better pocket presence than TM. For some reason it always looks like our pass-pro is better when they are in and I would chalk that up to both of them feeling pressure better than TM. QMany did have a good point though awhile back when he said that it could also very well be that they have more orthodox ways of moving around in the pocket than TM does which is why we see what we see.

Our pass protection has been better when they are in because we have less of a pass rush with the caliber of defenses they've faced. I guarantee if we don't have good pass protection versus MSU, they're going to sack us 7 times more than Minnesota did and they're going to have at least 3 picks.

The bottom line is the defenses TA and RKIII have faced haven't had a huge pass rush because they're not as good as the ones TM has faced this year.

NEB is going to have to try and run the ball a ton against MSU......

Mix is some play-action, screens, and some short passes......

 

[Knoxville Husker]

You need to go with Tommy at this point. If what we're hearing about Taylor's injuries are true, his career is already over, "day to day" malarky notwithstanding. However, knowing that Tommy is himself a walking interception machine, you need to really plan how the receivers are going to get touches. It can't be by forcing a freshman to become a drop back passer on the road against Michigan. Screens, sweeps, quick routes, play action, pass off the option game. There's your assortment of pass plays. Otherwise, feed Ameer.

This is really funny because you just said Beck needs to simplify the offense which we know won't happen!

 

[3rd and long]

I think a big key to TA's passing success is not continually putting him into obvious long yardage passing situations. Beck needs to keep the D guessing, and (don't explode everyone), it may mean some passing on first down. A "pound it down their throats" might work for a while, but not the entire game. The defense will adjust and start to stuff the run. Dont hand it off to Ameer every time on first down.

Run some play action early, some simple throws to get guys the ball out in space. If its third and 15 etc all game long, TA probably is going to look rattled, because the defense is probably coming after him, and with our line he is going to be pressured heavily and probably will make some bad decisions. We really need Beck to help out TA by keeping the defense guessing as to whats coming.

 

[Knoxville Husker]

I know it's not what we do, but I would just like to see the tempo slowed down. Slow it weigh down. Limit the number of plays ran by both the offense and the defense. We can still run our style, be we seriously need to start considering grinding the tempo of the game into the ground, and give us the mindset of getting back to grind it out football.

It has seemed pretty silly to me to run an inconsistent up tempo offense when you badly need to keep your defense off the field. Seems we are playing right into the other teams' hands at times.