i love tmart but hes not a qb.

[huskered17]

We are probably going to have to live and die with Martinez, hes the best we have. Sometimes it looks like he gets it and then the lights go out, for a while. I don't know if he will ever be a better passer than he is now, or make the right reads most of the time. I do think Carnes needs some reps when Martinez is struggling, at least a series, till he gets his head cleared.

I don't know if he will accept that real well, as he wants to be the qb. I would like to see him as a wing back or slot receiver, something like a j Rogers role. Has the speed and moves, and should have the good hands, but that could only happen if Carnes could handle it and Martinez would accept it.

I think the players are there, just need to define what roles would benefit the team better, on both sides of the ball. JMO

GBR!!!

 

[Enhance]

Question: Is become a better passer something that can be learned? If Martinez committed himself to learning how to correctly pass, could he improve?

Also, was the real reason we lost due to Martinez or did we lose because we simply could not stop the pass...couldn't contain Wilson?

This is one of those age-old questions that gets visited by teams across the nation, every year, at every level of football competition.

Messing with quarterback mechanics can be a dangerous business, especially when Martinez' are so god-awful. Quarterbacks generally just get better with time, after getting more game experience under their belts and working on things in the off-season and during practice. Martinez definitely has room for improvement, but how much I just don't know. I don't think he's ever going to be a guy that gets up into the 70% completion range, or even the mid 60's. It's best to just stick with what he can do - run the ball a lot and ask him to only pass 10-15 times a game, in situations where he is more likely to succeed i.e. play action or short screens.

As for your second question, here are my top reasons why we lost.

1) Poor offensive direction from the coaching staff.

2) Poor tackling.

3) Poor coverage in the secondary. We had two guys in a position to intercept a pass in the first or second quarter, and it went through our hands and into their receiver's.

 

[Bdgrfan]

Don't know if you saw this down there, but after the game senior FS Anthony Henry (#7, had the second pick) said this was the simplest defensive game plan UW has ever had in his time here. They had 4 plays, and its because they were just focused on stopping Martinez on the ground. It's just too easy to defend when a team is that reliant on one thing, And I think you guys are gonna teach that to Ohio State next week, too. Bauserman/Miller doesn't matter, your D is gonna shut them down completely.

 

[Hercules]

Don't know if you saw this down there, but after the game senior FS Anthony Henry (#7, had the second pick) said this was the simplest defensive game plan UW has ever had in his time here. They had 4 plays, and its because they were just focused on stopping Martinez on the ground. It's just too easy to defend when a team is that reliant on one thing, And I think you guys are gonna teach that to Ohio State next week, too. Bauserman/Miller doesn't matter, your D is gonna shut them down completely.

Did see this. Kinda sad that Wisconsin had that simple of a gameplan, but it's not an indictment of us being one-dimensional. It's an indictment of our ability to shoot ourselves in the foot. Wisconsin figured that if they kept the big plays from happening, we would hurt ourselves enough to lose the game. That's what happened - penalties, turnovers, and playcalling.

 

[zoogs]

That is very sad.

Badger fans, are Wisconsin even good on defense?

See, I knew your offense was good. But I thought your defense was nothing special, maybe even slow and kinda weak. At least in comparison to the offense. An average unit. Would you disagree?

Extremely disappointing that an average unit with a super-simple gameplan could stop us cold.

 

[Bdgrfan]

That is very sad.

Badger fans, are Wisconsin even good on defense?

See, I knew your offense was good. But I thought your defense was nothing special, maybe even slow and kinda weak. At least in comparison to the offense. An average unit. Would you disagree?

Extremely disappointing that an average unit with a super-simple gameplan could stop us cold.

We've definitely had better defenses. But I think they're kind of typical in that they get better as the game goes along. The philosophy is always bend-don't break, force teams to have to put together long drives and often enough you get a sack or a penalty or some such and they have to punt. They also benefit from the offense keeping them on the sideline and eventually forcing the other team to have to get too aggressive because they're trailing. But I do think they're very sound fundamentally and that'll make up for a lot of other shortcomings.

 

[Enhance]

Don't know if you saw this down there, but after the game senior FS Anthony Henry (#7, had the second pick) said this was the simplest defensive game plan UW has ever had in his time here. They had 4 plays, and its because they were just focused on stopping Martinez on the ground. It's just too easy to defend when a team is that reliant on one thing, And I think you guys are gonna teach that to Ohio State next week, too. Bauserman/Miller doesn't matter, your D is gonna shut them down completely.

I, for the most part, completely disagree with you. Perhaps this is the glory years coming out in me, but it's a proven fact around Nebraska that you can be simple-minded and still dominate the hell out of another football team (see the entire 1995 Husker season for reference). Unfortunately, this offensive unit is extremely young (probably one of the youngest in the country) and aren't that close of being capable to dominate with the run game every week.

That said, Nebraska was taking it right to Wisconsin with a lot of success in the first quarter and I would argue was in control of that game early on. If we had kept doing the rest of the game what we did in the first quarter, that score is closer and Nebraska's chances of winning greatly increase. Not saying they do win, but it's a lot more likely.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Well honestly, their D didn't stop us. We stopped us. So a comparison isn't exactly going to yield major conclusions.

 

[Badger_HB]

Our defense is mediocre at best, and, frankly, not national championship caliber. We get burned around the edges way too often.

 

[Enhance]

Our defense is mediocre at best, and, frankly, not national championship caliber. We get burned around the edges way too often.

Which is why it was frustrating to see Nebraska fail in the offensive gameplan. I really wish we would have kept chugging like we did in the first quarter. I still think Wisconsin would have won but not by that much.

I'm hoping we meet again in the B1G title game, Nebraska fixes the errors from the first time around and we play 60 minutes the way we were supposed to Saturday.

 

[Badger_HB]

I just think it snowballed on the whole team and turned into a vicious cycle. As the defense gave up some yards and points, Beck started jacking up the ball. In return, as Martinez struggled, the defense became more discouraged and got worn down.

 

[Enhance]

I just think it snowballed on the whole team and turned into a vicious cycle. As the defense gave up some yards and points, Beck started jacking up the ball. In return, as Martinez struggled, the defense became more discouraged and got worn down.

Spot on, and we've seen it happen here before, especially with our former offensive coordinator.

As long as Martinez is the qb, we need to run an offense predicated on the ground game and there's really no two ways about it. Almost every time we have been in a big game and we've asked Martinez to make a lot of throws (this last Saturday's game and the 2010 Big 12 CCG), we have lost and Martinez has looked bad.

Maybe Martinez does really well in practice when it comes to throwing the football. But given the way our secondary played, I wouldn't exactly be surprised.

 

[treyball3]

Martinez won't be a backup qb. He'll probably pull a Crouch and cry and complain and then quit the team if he can't play qb.

if he's going to be this big of a baby, and we think he's not really a QB, then I say good riddance... haha

 

[suh_fan93]

Some of the Husker legends with regards to being a QB struggled in the passing game. If we're going to be a pass happy spread, Martinez is definitely the wrong guy. If we're going to be a run dominated team especially with the option, Martinez is the guy. It's all a matter of what we want to accomplish. Martinez was 5 for 7 in the first quarter when we were hitting them with a healthy dose of running the ball. He can succeed in the passing game with play action when the run is working. When he lines up back there in the pistol and the defense knows he's going to throw it, we're in huge trouble.

I just want to add that in the late 80's and 90's Nebraska could win with a QB going 5-7 for the entire game. This is 2011 and it's not happening now. Personally I would have given Carnes more snaps beginning with the first game of this season. After 3 picks and Wisconsin putting the game more and more out of reach we needed a change Saturday night. With Carnes having almost zero experience so far there was no chance of that happening. Martinez is a great athlete. I'm very glad he is a Husker but I simply think he's playing the wrong position. In my perfect world we'd have Ameer, Green, Turner, Bell, Enunwa, Martinez and Burkhead as our running back and receiving core. I don't see Martinez being unseated unless he gets injured. I hope for the best this season but Saturday night was painful to watch.

 

[huskerswrkhavoc]

Badger fan here. My one-game sample's view of TMart:

• I think he is a dangerous runner (both designed and scrambling) and also a darn good ball distributor in both the traditional option and those quick-hitter, glorified long-handoff passes to the wideouts.
  

• He is a darn accurate passer when the first read is open. And this mythology of a poor throwing motion I think was not on display last night -- I've seen much worse.
  

• To me, the poorest aspect of TMart last night was happy feet. He started panicking and scrambling -- usually into the teeth of the defense -- when the pressure hadn't really gotten that heavy. I believe the Badger defensive coaches decided to only rush 3 or 4 the entire second half because they recognized this. That should be a coachable deficiency, but maybe you guys know better -- has he always been this way? Is he even coached to do that because of his running ability?
  

Anyway, I think you guys have the talent to put this one game behind you, learn from it, and move forward -- you'll have some tussles ahead of you, but I think you are still the favorite to win your division. Kill Brutus!

Thank you. +1

People try to blame this all on Tmart simply because he isn't a pocket passer. I would love to have seen Frost or Crouch execute the play calls that took place from the middle of the second quarter into the third quarter last night. As it's been stated a few times, Taylor looks good when we are balanced and using play action. He looks terrible when we have 4 wide and they drop everyone into coverage. That isn't who he is and we can't force it. That's what Cally did... If we use play calling like we did in the 1st quarter, we would have been able to move the ball much better than we did.