Tommy's picks-Are they as bad as they look?

I just cant get over 6 in two games with the las one coming realy late and deep in our territory. Haunting. Hes gotta be losing sleep over that last one. I think hes gonna be a smooth operatoe next uear now that he has a better understanding of in game intangibles. But man oh man are the Wolverines gonna be looking for INTs.

 
One INT last week was on 3rd and 20 and he tried to make something happen and threw the interception from their 40 to their 20. It was basically a punt. The others? Pretty bad.

 
1995 Redux said:
I just cant get over 6 in two games with the las one coming realy late and deep in our territory. Haunting. Hes gotta be losing sleep over that last one. I think hes gonna be a smooth operatoe next uear now that he has a better understanding of in game intangibles. But man oh man are the Wolverines gonna be looking for INTs.
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This is the part where Beck takes care of TA like a good coach is supposed to. Meaning that Beck has enough of a sample size of in game performances to understand the strengths and weaknesses. What TA can and can't do. This is what worries me. Beck never has seemed to quite get that yet. Not with Taylor anyways. We will see what happens this Saturday because I think the offensive gameplan is going to be vital. The Big House is loud as hell. We better understand that Michigan is going to bring everything. They will sell out to stop the run, their crowd will affect everything, and we will have to have a solid yet safe plan of attack. If not, with all the things a road trip to Michigan brings, the day could be very similar to the NW game for TA. This one is on Beck to help his freshman QB on the road.

 
Oh ya, and if the defense stays aggressive and the front four attack, we can make Gardner look like a freshman too.

Could be a tale of who forces who into the most mistakes.

 
My two cents are that he is not reading the field at all. Beck said it perfectly when he said he isn't "seeing the field" very well. It's true. There are certain situations where he reads it well, or makes a good decision, but he has his bad moments too. I think it was obvious when he was.

Hell, even a good play was a bad decision. When Enunwa made that excellent catch between DB's. Great catch! But TA had Cethan Carter completely wide open in the middle, and he threw into double coverage. The defense played a lot of zone coverages. Some QB's throw well against (Zac Taylor and Joe Ganz threw excellent against those types of coverages, and TM throws pretty well against them too).

So, in conclusion, he just is not seeing the field well, and when he is hurried, he just hurls it at the first guy he sees. Freshmen mistakes, he knows he has to clean them up. The last one, he didn't even see the LB and he just threw the ball out there. It sometimes takes a bit for guys to know where everyone is. A lot of studying and understanding coverage concepts (and route concepts for his WR's). Something that he is struggling with and will struggle with. He'll learn those concepts and how they work against certain plays and such. Right now, you can tell they are just trying to get him to just run the offense. It's hard to teach all this at once to someone who was a natural talent in HS.

With that being said, the team seems to play extremely well with him as QB. The defense plays lights out when he makes mistakes. The WR's catch balls (ie. Enunwa must catch into double coverage). The RB's makes plays. This isn't about his ability, but the team in general has a "we need to play well for this kid" mentality or something. For that reason alone, there's upside to the kid. He's thrown 3 picks in each of the two games he started. Both W's. I am not saying it is because of him directly, but somehow, the mentality of the team is better. Maybe the game plan is better for them. The linemen love to run the ball, so a more run-oriented game plan might just pump them up more than the game plans for TM with a more pass happy approach (the one against Minn).

 
If you go back over every throw he has made he could be averaging 3 picks per game. SDSU and Illinois didn't have the talent in the secondary to make him pay for his bad decisions.

 
First one was a bad decision, frosh or otherwise. Second I can live with, being 3rd and 20 in that twilight zone area of the field. He just took a chance and made a bad throw. Third, while an absolute killer, was a combination of inexperience in recognizing coverage, and a hurried throw as a result of AA whiffing in blitz pickup.

 
Shuck U said:
Still more productive than Taylor would be right now, but Tommy has certainly lost speed since high school which is bothersome.
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That, or the competition he's playing agaisnt got a lot faster.

I love all the people here using one damn second of high school film to say how a kid is going to do in college.

There are zero sure things in college football turnout. I once asked my college coach how he knew/recruited/made an offer to a high school kid.

He said this: "a great player who may have a shot at college needs to make EVERY play. After that, we look at the metrics (40, vert, bench, etc). Then, we look at the competition he plays. Then we look at his grades and talk about what kind of person he is. If one or more of the latter (grades, person) become an issue we look at the former (making plays) and see if it outweighs the metrics."

TA made every play in HS. he's a baller. He hasn't lost a step. He's playing the most difficult position in team sports, period. It's not going to look pretty. What has he done well? Ran the ball! Scott frost and Frazier never ever threw a good ball. But they did what they could do, and limited mistakes.

He has natural ability. It will take time to hone actual QB skills.

What we need to talk about is getting unique players to play unique football at Nebraska. Who cares about Elite Eleven camps and all that bullsh#t. Lets get guys who can run our system our way and limit mistakes. Which we haven't had since Zac Taylor

 
I am I said:
Shuck U said:
Still more productive than Taylor would be right now, but Tommy has certainly lost speed since high school which is bothersome.
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That, or the competition he's playing agaisnt got a lot faster.

*SNIP* ...

He has natural ability. It will take time to hone actual QB skills.
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This. Also, Tommy never looked fast. I don't look at a lot of high school film anymore, but I remember poring over TA's and Brion's. Brion was hella impressive in his high school film and I'm still bummed he didn't really pan out here. That guy was fast and he was shifty

and damn could he throw on the run. When I got to Tommy, he looked a little more on the passer side of the spectrum and definitely had an arm, but not nearly as explosive an athlete.

However, he runs smooth, well, and with RB-like vision. He's got that, he's got his arm strength, pretty good throwing and pocket mechanics, and the leadership intangibles everyone has been raving about since his recruitment. He's had an uncommon level of love thrown at him for those traits, and that's a good sign.

Those actual reading the defense skills and honing them, I hope we have the right QB coaching in place for it. I don't know if we do. But we do have a creative OC who knows what he's doing, so failing that, I hope at least we can design a workable offense around him.

 
His running ability is comical. He comes to damn near a complete stop, and the defenders still freeze in their shoes and fall down. It's quite remarkable.

 
tschu said:
I'd be fine with Tommy just being serviceable throwing the ball, because him running the option is a thing of beauty. Until Beck decides that the option just works too gosh darn well midway through the 2nd quarter and it's never seen again, at least
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Ya, not sticking with what's working in the run game may be Beck's biggest shortcoming. I don't care if Minn looked susceptible to the pass, the only thing working with consistency was AA running, should've fed him. Then this week we abandon the option that was working so well early.

As far as TA's passing goes if reads and forcing the ball are issues then we need to be more of a pound the rock and play-action team.

 
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