official spring game thread

[knapplc]

How did the O-Line look against the Blackshirts D-Line?

I thought the O Line "won" most of their battles today. I was impressed with their blocking, and I can't recall too many times when the D Line had a real, play-affecting push.

I think O-line did a very good job today, more-so in the first half then in the second though. But, it's a tough call to make. They mixed up a lot of guys on the o-line and they were constantly rotating fresh faces into the d-line up. That said, they were opening up holes regularly and the running threats our quarterbacks possessed helped open some of those holes. For the most part though, both sides played well against each other and made some good things happen.
I was really impressed with pass-pro today for the offense though. Our quarterbacks had a lot of time to get rid of the ball, and I know one sack today was just a coverage sack, when blame for the sack falls on the QB for taking too long. I don't remember seeing a sack from the d-line just bull rushing into the backfield.

I agree with this. Even when we blitzed, the D didn't get in the QB's faces much. I think it was Okafor (forgive me if that's wrong) who had an excellent pick-up in the second quarter where he basically blocked two A Gap blitzers, knocking one into the other.

I thought Austin Jones looked pretty good. And how bout my boy Brandon Kinnie carrying the whole team into the endzone!!!!

Definitely my favorite play of the day. Absolutely amazing. I'm also honestly surprised the play wasn't blown dead. Kudos to the refs for letting it keep going.

Meh. That play should have been blown dead. Forward progress was clearly stopped at about the nine/seven yard line, but they didn't wrestle him to the ground because there were so many bodies in the stack that he almost couldn't go down, and they eventually outmanned the tacklers and shoved Kinnie into the end zone. Fun play, but I think in a real game that gets blown dead.

Was that pass from Cody Green to McNeil, who then threw it downfield, supposed to bounce off the ground?

Yes, as has been said already it was the Bouncarooskie. The crowd recognized it right away and was duly appreciative, but it's a tough pass to throw on the FieldTurf - Turner had it WAY easier on the old Astroturf we used to have. The FieldTurf seems to grab the ball when it hits, and Green had to RAM that ball in the ground to get it to bounce, although it should be noted someone (couldn't see who) was blazing in off the corner and Cody basically had to throw it under the blitzer. All things considered, that pass should be counted as a big positive for Cody. He was taken out of his comfort zone on that play, yet he made a solid play and didn't panic or screw up. That was good to see.

 

[whateveritis1224]

Green was more impressive passing then Martinez, but Martinez is by far the best running QB.

Martinez had 2 throws where I was shaking my head, his INT, and the one where he threw it up but it looked like he threw it to Gomes more than his intended receiver. He looked more ready to run over pass, not a bad thing, but maybe not something that the coaches want all the time. Give him another year and it looks like 2011 will be a great battle, but right now I'm looking at Green as the #2 with Martinez right behind him (in fact I expect to see Martinez to get more playing time running the wildcat, unless of course Lee gets injured, then I see Martinez and Green splitting time).

While Green didn't do anything really impressive (besides his TD pass), he didn't do anything bad. He misfired on some passes, but none of his throws were in danger of getting picked. He made good decisions, but he needs to show more before I'd be anywhere near comfortable giving him the ball as the starter.

 

[HuskerGBR]

I think Niles Paul needs to be mentioned here. I plugged his name in another thread, but he looked fantastic out there. He has gone to another level game-wise. Did anyone notice that Roy Helu looked hurt after his first run? He didn't look right...it was like at the Missouri game when he hurt his shoulder (just something that stood out to me, I am sure he is fine).

I would also say that Austin Jones really impressed me out there. He looked pretty good. Will Henry also had some shining moments. Then there was Will Compton...he looked like he had a pretty good command out there. He was doing a lot of talking and getting the defense situated.

Oh and Jay Guy looks HUGE! I think he needs to get in better shape and he got pushed around a lot. He is very young though so he will get there in time.

Just a few things I saw out there.

 

[Landlord]

Yeah it was a designed bounce pass, paying homage to our very own Turner Gill!

Also, there is no "arguably" about it. Martinez is leaps and bounds better at running the football than Green or Lee (maybe not Washington, but I don't really consider him in the race.)

 

[Enhance]

I don't think we can we can really pencil in who had a more impressive day between CG and T-Magic.

You have to look at this as objectively as you can. It was essentially a practice, not near the pressure of a real game day, vanilla offensive packages, vanilla defensive packages, and no play clock restrictions. The guys were just out there executing base offense and defensive stuff. Nothing real spectacular about it.

I will say this though: both guys looked pretty close in throwing ability throughout the day. CG had a throw or two that made me go "What was that?", but T-Magic had one or two himself. Also, T-Magic looked very good running the football. Not to say CG isn't a dual threat, because he is, but it appears to take him longer to get to full speed than it does Martinez. Martinez seems to be at full speed within a few steps while CG takes awhile to get that speed worked up.

Spring games are not meant to really propel any decision making factors. Bo Pelini himself said that today was just one small portion of the entire evaluation process. I'm sure Bo took today no more importantly than he took Week 1 of practice. It's all the same in his book.

 

[knapplc]

I think the most accurate thing we can say after watching Green and T Mart play yesterday, all things considered, is that we have two more bona fide options at QB right now. Both are still raw, but it looked like both would be capable of moving the ball for us if called upon. Counting Lee, that's three total QBs that I would be comfortable handing the ball to after watching the game yesterday.

 

[GMoose]

I just can't bring myself to get on the Martinez bandwagon. Yes, he is fast. He hits top speed faster than any of our QBs. He is definitely more decisive than ZL. But his passing game just (to me) leaves so much to be desired, and in the end we need a guy who can throw the ball. If Martinez is the QB, what do we do when Texas comes to town next year? They only let Zac throw the ball 9 times against UT last year, and 3 of those were picks. We wouldn't be able to compile 50 yards in a game against a good defense with Martinez leading the offense if they want to be 50-50 pass and run. If we were a strictly running read option offense, he would be awesome. Hell, he ran the zone read better than anyone. But Watson isn't going to change any time soon.

 

[Enhance]

I just can't bring myself to get on the Martinez bandwagon. Yes, he is fast. He hits top speed faster than any of our QBs. He is definitely more decisive than ZL. But his passing game just (to me) leaves so much to be desired, and in the end we need a guy who can throw the ball. If Martinez is the QB, what do we do when Texas comes to town next year? They only let Zac throw the ball 9 times against UT last year, and 3 of those were picks. We wouldn't be able to compile 50 yards in a game against a good defense with Martinez leading the offense if they want to be 50-50 pass and run. If we were a strictly running read option offense, he would be awesome. Hell, he ran the zone read better than anyone. But Watson isn't going to change any time soon.

I'm not prying but I think it's too soon to really debate anybody's throwing. As I said, the Spring game was just a small part of the entire evaluation process. Martinez had two tipped throws, but Cody Green had two throws that hit the dirt below a receivers foot. Both of them had about as good of days as you could expect for only throwing (collectively) 24 balls between the two. Both did good things and both did some pretty bad things.

The one thing I liked a lot from yesterday though was that they both took smarter chances with the football and neither stared down receivers. They seemed to go through progressions nicely. The only real downgrade I'd give on Martinez was that he shouldn't have tried to fit the ball into the receivers hands that eventually got tipped and picked by Ricky Thenarse.

 

[GMoose]

I just can't bring myself to get on the Martinez bandwagon. Yes, he is fast. He hits top speed faster than any of our QBs. He is definitely more decisive than ZL. But his passing game just (to me) leaves so much to be desired, and in the end we need a guy who can throw the ball. If Martinez is the QB, what do we do when Texas comes to town next year? They only let Zac throw the ball 9 times against UT last year, and 3 of those were picks. We wouldn't be able to compile 50 yards in a game against a good defense with Martinez leading the offense if they want to be 50-50 pass and run. If we were a strictly running read option offense, he would be awesome. Hell, he ran the zone read better than anyone. But Watson isn't going to change any time soon.

I'm not prying but I think it's too soon to really debate anybody's throwing. As I said, the Spring game was just a small part of the entire evaluation process. Martinez had two tipped throws, but Cody Green had two throws that hit the dirt below a receivers foot. Both of them had about as good of days as you could expect for only throwing (collectively) 24 balls between the two. Both did good things and both did some pretty bad things.

The one thing I liked a lot from yesterday though was that they both took smarter chances with the football and neither stared down receivers. They seemed to go through progressions nicely. The only real downgrade I'd give on Martinez was that he shouldn't have tried to fit the ball into the receivers hands that eventually got tipped and picked by Ricky Thenarse.

That's actually what I was just about to respond. I did like the way CG especially went through progressions. He looked far more poised than he did last year. i remember one specific play when Eric Martin was blitzing up the middle basically untouched, and Cody found his man, set his feet, then delivered a strike right over the middle with Martin in his face.

But yes, all in all you're definitely right, it's far too early to tell. And I guess I am a little bias because I think the QB should be throw first run second.

But a la a windows 7 commercial, I just had an epiphany in the shower. What about Martinez in the Pistol? His skill set reminds me Colin Kaepernick from Nevada. Thoughts?

 

[Enhance]

I just can't bring myself to get on the Martinez bandwagon. Yes, he is fast. He hits top speed faster than any of our QBs. He is definitely more decisive than ZL. But his passing game just (to me) leaves so much to be desired, and in the end we need a guy who can throw the ball. If Martinez is the QB, what do we do when Texas comes to town next year? They only let Zac throw the ball 9 times against UT last year, and 3 of those were picks. We wouldn't be able to compile 50 yards in a game against a good defense with Martinez leading the offense if they want to be 50-50 pass and run. If we were a strictly running read option offense, he would be awesome. Hell, he ran the zone read better than anyone. But Watson isn't going to change any time soon.

I'm not prying but I think it's too soon to really debate anybody's throwing. As I said, the Spring game was just a small part of the entire evaluation process. Martinez had two tipped throws, but Cody Green had two throws that hit the dirt below a receivers foot. Both of them had about as good of days as you could expect for only throwing (collectively) 24 balls between the two. Both did good things and both did some pretty bad things.

The one thing I liked a lot from yesterday though was that they both took smarter chances with the football and neither stared down receivers. They seemed to go through progressions nicely. The only real downgrade I'd give on Martinez was that he shouldn't have tried to fit the ball into the receivers hands that eventually got tipped and picked by Ricky Thenarse.

That's actually what I was just about to respond. I did like the way CG especially went through progressions. He looked far more poised than he did last year. i remember one specific play when Eric Martin was blitzing up the middle basically untouched, and Cody found his man, set his feet, then delivered a strike right over the middle with Martin in his face.

But yes, all in all you're definitely right, it's far too early to tell. And I guess I am a little bias because I think the QB should be throw first run second.

But a la a windows 7 commercial, I just had an epiphany in the shower. What about Martinez in the Pistol? His skill set reminds me Colin Kaepernick from Nevada. Thoughts?

In order for me to believe you, you must get an athletic look-a-like of yourself to dramatize your epiphany in the shower. Chest and up only in the shot, please. :lol:

 

[GMoose]

Now do you believe me?

 

[Captain K]

I had a great time except the drunk, fat, old, idiot with the champions club necklace in front of me that still thinks this game is 1s vs 2s and Cody Green sucked for failing against the, "second string defense." About the 15th time I truly got annoyed. If you're too drunk and clueless to not realize Jared Crick isn't on the second string, it would be better for everyone if you said nothing. It's pretty bad when the people you came to the game with are ignoring you.

They weren't ignoring me, they were listening to my pearls of wisdom!

 

[dubsker]

I had a great time except the drunk, fat, old, idiot with the champions club necklace in front of me that still thinks this game is 1s vs 2s and Cody Green sucked for failing against the, "second string defense." About the 15th time I truly got annoyed. If you're too drunk and clueless to not realize Jared Crick isn't on the second string, it would be better for everyone if you said nothing. It's pretty bad when the people you came to the game with are ignoring you.

They weren't ignoring me, they were listening to my pearls of wisdom!

It wasn't you! I can't imagine this man had access to a computer.

 

[Captain K]

I had a great time except the drunk, fat, old, idiot with the champions club necklace in front of me that still thinks this game is 1s vs 2s and Cody Green sucked for failing against the, "second string defense." About the 15th time I truly got annoyed. If you're too drunk and clueless to not realize Jared Crick isn't on the second string, it would be better for everyone if you said nothing. It's pretty bad when the people you came to the game with are ignoring you.

They weren't ignoring me, they were listening to my pearls of wisdom!

It wasn't you! I can't imagine this man had access to a computer.

I traded those teeth I am missing for a computer.

Ok, so not having seen the game yesterday, or for that matter even listening to it, I am dumbfounded as to how people were impressed with TMart and CGreen yet no one is picking either to start over Lee. How can two qb's get any praise whatsoever yet not possibly be better options than a guy who was not deserving of praise at any time last year? We are in trouble if Lee is #1 next year. We are in trouble the following year if Carnes or Turner aren't any good, because we will have to start someone who can't beat out Lee. That is all.

 

[whateveritis1224]

Anyone else notice us using formations right out of Florida's playbook? We ran the zone read really similar to the way Florida does, and we also ran a formation with the TE lining up right behind the tackle.