Martinez QB Camp Update

skersfan said:
You can have an average QB with a great line, and do wonders. But you have nothing without a line. I will agree his reads, his drops to the ground were his choice, but when all you can see is DL in your face it is hard to make the choices. I am hoping with his speed back, he can make up for some of their short falls. As bad as he has been at times, he has still out performed the OL it seems to me.
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Yeah, this is what happens when a good QB has the D-line swarming all over him:

Danny Wuerffel, 1996 Fiesta Bowl: 17-31 passing, with 3 ints; 9 rushes for -37 yds; 6 sacks; 1 safety

 
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bshirt, I know you of all people aren't dissing on walk-ons! We started walk-ons like Choi because he's a road-grading beast and was beating out major recruits like A-Rod. Cotton and Long are also some great walk-on success stories. Anyway, I think we agree that the unit hasn't achieved greatness, but they've been solid. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. It isn't disastrous, which would have been the reasonable expectation fairly recently. I don't think we have a championship level line, but I do think QB play is going be the difference between 7-8 wins and 10-11 wins and a shot at the B1G title.

I think a huge part of the game is 'rush the passer / stop the pass rush.' Although there are many components to it, and a significant part is the QB's pocket presence and perhaps even more importantly, his pre-snap reads.

 
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zoogies said:
For all this talk of OL, I think everything hinges on Taylor this year. And he just might step it up.

Sure, the OL is extremely important, I'm not discounting that. But lack of impact, limited scope, and frequent mistakes from the QB position have held us back as much or more in the past two years as an OL which, last year at least, can be faulted mostly for not being "great".
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The OL played poorly enough under Cotton through 2010 that we felt it was necessary to add Garrison and Stai to the unit. That's three position coaches. (I know that Stai technically is not an assistant coach, but that's semantics to a degree. His focus is solely on assisting coach the position, which makes his title somewhat irrelevant in terms of this discussion.)

In light of that, it's safe to say that the OL unit has severely underperformed over the last couple years. Last year saw improvement, but contrast our OL with Wisconsin last year. Not in the same league. And you know as well as anyone on this board that if the line is mediocre or average, your QB performance is going to reflect that. You are not a big Taylor fan. No crime in that. But you're a smart football fan, and I'm a little incredulous that you would try to downplay how much our line has hurt us over the last three years.

Taylor was not the problem last year. His play improved markedly. (imo, obviously.)

 
zoogies said:
bshirt, I know you of all people aren't dissing on walk-ons! We started walk-ons like Choi because he's a road-grading beast and was beating out major recruits like A-Rod. Cotton and Long are also some great walk-on success stories. Anyway, I think we agree that the unit hasn't achieved greatness, but they've been solid. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. It isn't disastrous, which would have been the reasonable expectation fairly recently. I don't think we have a championship level line, but I do think QB play is going be the difference between 7-8 wins and 10-11 wins and a shot at the B1G title.

I think a huge part of the game is 'rush the passer / stop the pass rush.' Although there are many components to it, and a significant part is the QB's pocket presence and perhaps even more importantly, his pre-snap reads.
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Haha.....we know each other well old friend. But honestly, the last thing in the world I thought of our Oline vs NW & others was "solid". But that's ok. I agree Tmart has to get better.

Hang tough, compadre'. You just might like the offense this year. In fact, I'm betting you will. If so, that means you owe me "another" cold one!

 
zoogies said:
bshirt, I know you of all people aren't dissing on walk-ons! We started walk-ons like Choi because he's a road-grading beast and was beating out major recruits like A-Rod. Cotton and Long are also some great walk-on success stories. Anyway, I think we agree that the unit hasn't achieved greatness, but they've been solid. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. It isn't disastrous, which would have been the reasonable expectation fairly recently. I don't think we have a championship level line, but I do think QB play is going be the difference between 7-8 wins and 10-11 wins and a shot at the B1G title.

I think a huge part of the game is 'rush the passer / stop the pass rush.' Although there are many components to it, and a significant part is the QB's pocket presence and perhaps even more importantly, his pre-snap reads.
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This past year I've been guilty of criticizing our O-line recruiting a couple of times--due to three of our starters being walk-ons (or former walk-ons). But I've come to the point where I think my attitude was wrong. I should be singing the praises of our walk-on program instead, not criticizing our O-line recruiting efforts. If we could get to the point where half our quality O-linemen came from the ranks of our walk-ons--without a downgrade in quality--well, that would be a HUGE advantage for us. We'd have a couple of schollies to spend on other areas of need.

 
bshirt said:
zoogies said:
bshirt, I know you of all people aren't dissing on walk-ons! We started walk-ons like Choi because he's a road-grading beast and was beating out major recruits like A-Rod. Cotton and Long are also some great walk-on success stories. Anyway, I think we agree that the unit hasn't achieved greatness, but they've been solid. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. It isn't disastrous, which would have been the reasonable expectation fairly recently. I don't think we have a championship level line, but I do think QB play is going be the difference between 7-8 wins and 10-11 wins and a shot at the B1G title.

I think a huge part of the game is 'rush the passer / stop the pass rush.' Although there are many components to it, and a significant part is the QB's pocket presence and perhaps even more importantly, his pre-snap reads.
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Haha.....we know each other well old friend. But honestly, the last thing in the world I thought of our Oline vs NW & others was "solid". But that's ok. I agree Tmart has to get better.

Hang tough, compadre'. You just might like the offense this year. In fact, I'm betting you will. If so, that means you owe me "another" cold one!
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I have a feeling..once again, that this team will be Bo's best team thus far at Nebraska. Watch out! It's going to be a fun ride. hehe.

 
I should clarify. By 'everything', I just mean the difference between about 8 and about 10 wins. Holding the OL as a "fairly solid" level. I think we can do that. If the OL is disastrous, nothing will happen, of course, but we're past the point where that should be a concern. At the other end, it is unreasonable to expect the OL to magically transform into an elite caliber, national championship studly unit in one year.

Of course the trenches are key. But if they are doing solid and showing improvement, they should stop catching flak for not being comparable to the outstanding lines of the past.

What I am getting at is if we're back in the CCG this season, it will be a superb job done by Taylor growing into his role as a quarterback and team leader, and he would deserve credit by the boatloads. The boatloads.

 
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zoogies said:
I should clarify. By 'everything', I just mean the difference between about 8 and about 10 wins. Holding the OL as a "fairly solid" level. I think we can do that. If the OL is disastrous, nothing will happen, of course, but we're past the point where that should be a concern. At the other end, it is unreasonable to expect the OL to magically transform into an elite caliber, national championship studly unit in one year.

Of course the trenches are key. But if they are doing solid and showing improvement, they should stop catching flak for not being comparable to the outstanding lines of the past.

What I am getting at is if we're back in the CCG this season, it will be a superb job done by Taylor growing into his role as a quarterback and team leader, and he would deserve credit by the boatloads. The boatloads.
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Damn well said, zoogies!! No denying he's a HUGE part of hacking that. I think we're still several light-years away from any mid 90s road graders but we're definitively moving that direction. Opponent DCs are going to hate our guts.

C'mon September!!

GBR!!

 
I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but we won't get into the CCG because of Taylor this year. I don't care if he's ready to have a Heisman year, if that line isn't solid, we don't make it there. If the line isn't solid Rex doesn't go out with a bang. The WRs won't put up any kind of numbers and Reed and Cotton will go out quietly, not with their own accolades like I'm hoping.

If the line isn't solid we'll have basically the same offense we had last year.

 
knapplc said:
I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but we won't get into the CCG because of Taylor this year. I don't care if he's ready to have a Heisman year, if that line isn't solid, we don't make it there. If the line isn't solid Rex doesn't go out with a bang. The WRs won't put up any kind of numbers and Reed and Cotton will go out quietly, not with their own accolades like I'm hoping.

If the line isn't solid we'll have basically the same offense we had last year.
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Well, the final round of guys left over from before Bo got here just graduated. I.E., Baker and the other seniors are the first class Bo recruited (even if he had to come in and more or less salvage it after Callahan imploded).

Long have I voiced my displeasure of Barney Cotton as OL coach. But he's still here and the players seem to stick up for him, so he must be good enough to keep his job. But, the time has come for the excuses to stop being made. No more "we're too banged up" or anything else. We've got good depth on the line this year, which was something we really had to contend with the past few years because the OL recruiting misses under Callahan.

He's also got Garrison helping along the line, which a lot of us think may have had something to do with the step forward the line took at times last year. If Barney can't get it done with the pieces he's been given this year, he never will.

 
dudeguyy said:
knapplc said:
I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but we won't get into the CCG because of Taylor this year. I don't care if he's ready to have a Heisman year, if that line isn't solid, we don't make it there. If the line isn't solid Rex doesn't go out with a bang. The WRs won't put up any kind of numbers and Reed and Cotton will go out quietly, not with their own accolades like I'm hoping.

If the line isn't solid we'll have basically the same offense we had last year.
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Well, the final round of guys left over from before Bo got here just graduated. I.E., Baker and the other seniors are the first class Bo recruited (even if he had to come in and more or less salvage it after Callahan imploded).

Long have I voiced my displeasure of Barney Cotton as OL coach. But he's still here and the players seem to stick up for him, so he must be good enough to keep his job. But, the time has come for the excuses to stop being made. No more "we're too banged up" or anything else. We've got good depth on the line this year, which was something we really had to contend with the past few years because the OL recruiting misses under Callahan.

He's also got Garrison helping along the line, which a lot of us think may have had something to do with the step forward the line took at times last year. If Barney can't get it done with the pieces he's been given this year, he never will.
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Yeah, that's a refrain heard FAR too often.

 
Let's assume that the line is going to be "solid." Not 1995 Nebraska, but just solid.

In that case, I propose that Taylor's veteran savvy and leadership will be the make or break between a decent season and a very good one. A merely solid line usually cannot by itself carry this team to a CCG win. I mean, unless the defense becomes all kinds of spectacular again.

We agree that if the line is awful, we will have a bad season no matter what anybody else does.

 
If the line is "solid" then I think this year's success will hinge 33.3/33.3/33.3 on Taylor, Rex, and the receivers. Taylor has to make good decisions and get the ball to playmakers - or make the play himself, with his part of the "good decision" thing.

Rex needs to run tough, minimize mistakes, and overall not be the reason we lose an extra game. Or, at least, one of the reasons.

The receivers (TEs as well as WRs) need to catch the balls thrown to them and make solid blocks - something they did not do all the time last year.

So we have a lot of hinges on this team. Taylor could be one of the huge positives for Nebraska this year, I'll agree with that.

 
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