SEATTLE -- Walking off the field, with Nebraska's resounding triumph over Washington complete, Taylor Martinez felt a pat on his shoulder.
It was the coach who played the lead role in recruiting him to Lincoln.
"I told him, ‘You just served notice to all those Pac-10 coaches who recruited you as a returner, receiver or safety,'" Husker defensive coordinator Carl Pelini said.
Lots of coaches didn't see Martinez as a quarterback.
Oh, but Martinez is a quarterback, all right. He's most definitely Nebraska's quarterback, its definitive starter into the foreseeable future, lest there were any doubts.
There aren't now.
Plenty of folks wondered how Martinez, a redshirt freshman, would perform Saturday in the din of 72,500-seat Husky Stadium. Would he freeze up in his first road start? Would he panic on those third-down plays when the place was so loud the press box was shaking? Would he effectively communicate plays to his teammates?
"He did it like he's been doing it forever," Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said.
In 17 plays spanning the first and second quarters, the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Martinez either ran or passed the ball on every down. Was Nebraska leaning on its quarterback too hard?
The fact we even pose the question speaks volumes about not only Martinez's performance Saturday, but also the extreme confidence Husker coaches have in the smooth Californian with fleet feet and a strong arm.
"If you're going to play quarterback in this offense, that's what you do," Watson said
Martinez did essentially everything at a high level in eighth-ranked Nebraska's 56-21 win. He was 7-for-11 passing for 150 yards and a touchdown. He rushed 19 times for 137 yards and three more scores. He clearly outplayed Jake Locker.
He even operated smoothly in the postgame presser, though it's not his favorite part of being the starting QB at a high-profile football school.
Looks like he'd better get used to it.
Suddenly, Nebraska has a big-play offense, a formidable unit, which is nothing like last year's sputtering outfit. Much of the thanks goes to Martinez. He runs the zone-read very, very well. He runs it well enough that defenses must key on him, and when those defenses start paying too much attention to Martinez, boom, they get two fresh-legged I-backs pounding it up the middle.
Washington seldom had any good answers.
Thing is, Martinez had a nice passing day. Recall the third-and-16 early in the second quarter, when he gunned a strike to wideout Niles Paul on a 25-yard comeback route. It wasn't an easy throw for most quarterbacks to make, but Martinez made it look easy.
Nebraska made a lot of plays look easy, so many that it creates skepticism about Washington's defense. Remember, the Huskies are only two seasons removed from an 0-12 calamity. The Huskies ranked at or near the bottom of the Pac-10 in every major statistical category on defense last year, and gave up 408 yards to Brigham Young to start this season.
So you don't want to go overboard praising Martinez or the Nebraska offense in general. Washington just isn't a very good team.
But it has a very, very loud stadium. And the game was on ABC, shown to a large share of the country. Maybe that would rattle Martinez.
Something, anything? Nope.
"He's just cool, cool, cool," Watson said. "He gets mad at us because he thinks we're worried about him.
"I wasn't worried at all," the coach added.
So Watson didn't have any special talks with Martinez before the game. Nor did head coach Bo Pelini. They pretty much leave him alone, Martinez said.
"They know I'll be fine," he said, noting it's very hard to earn Pelini's trust.
Martinez was better than fine on this day, a day he looked like Nebraska's definitive starting quarterback for many moons to come.
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