Good post. I think a huge, unspoken misconception is that Martinez doesn't know he isn't the greatest passer in the world. He knows - he sees the film and he hears the criticism. No matter what a coach or player ever tells you, they're ALWAYS paying attention to what the media says about them. Always.
I saw this team quit a couple times last year. He's the leader of the offense, and sets the tone in the huddle. I don't think they would have quit if the above was entirely true. It's not all on Taylor, this is a team sport - and IMO a lot of this falls on the coaches. But, I do think Taylor gets down on himself and loses confidence or whatever - and it impacts his play and his effort. Just an observation.
It's a fair observation. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us have enough information to say one way or the other. We can only go by what we see on the field. Martinez may be the "leader" of the offense, but quarterbacks have bad games like every other position. If he throws an interception or two, he'll obviously be taken out of his element a bit, and it will be up to other players to keep things positive. Everything can't run on the whims and emotions of one person. But, if it is, that means there's more psychological problems than anything else.
When did our team quit last year? They got their butts kicked against Wisconsin, Michigan, and South Carolina, but I never felt like they quit. I've seen Taylor and others play worse than they're capable of - maybe they lose confidence and play tentatively, or sometimes they'll get frustrated and lose focus - but that's very different from "quitting."
The only time I saw quit was from the online at the end of the South Carolina game....I believe it was the last series, Taylor and everyone else was still trying to make plays but the online gave up 3 straight sacks. Those three plays the online had seemed to quit. But maybe I am the only one who thought that.
I don't think they quit. South Carolina's defensive line was extremely good, and we were in a situation where we had absolutely no choice but to try to drop back and pass. Their d-line simply teed off on us. It's the same thing we used to do to other teams - when you take away a team's running game, they become one-dimensional, and your defensive ends can charge up the field without having to worry about containing the run or anything.
Yep. Pretty much their DLine just laid the wood to us. We've got a ways to go but hopefully we'll get there soon.
I think we're already there. Nebraska had an opportunity to be up 21 points going into the half against South Carolina in the bowl game. I'm telling you, if this team can just not self-inflict those wounds we could definitely be Big 10 champs with a strong possibility of playing for a BCS title this season. As is, I think that the self-inflicted wounds syndrome will continue to affect this team and another 9-3 regular season is more likely.
Exactly. I haven't seen any team we've played be head and shoulders better than us, and just beat us down on the field even though we played a good mistake free game. If Pelini can get this team to play a smarter overall game, we'll win 2 more games a season.
Oh, I agree with both of you that we're capable of playing with anyone which is 10,000 times better than we were five years ago. Just making that next big step is brutally difficult though. We'll see.....I think it mostly hinges on the line play and I like Bo's priority about that. Barney/Kaz/Garrison better be ready.
