I might be inclined to agree if there was any evidence that Zac Lee is a markedly better passer than Martinez. Seems like having Martinez in there is like having Lee, except with 4.35 speed. That should be enough to keep defenses guessing.
This is a good point. Much of Martinez' problems passing have been the result of dropped passes. Yes, he's had bad throws, but so has Lee. Martinez' good throws are being dropped, making his stats look worse than they should. Martinez is a competent passer - not Joe Montana, but he's not Tommie Frazier, either.
Qualitatively, having Martinez in there is exactly
nothing like having Lee.
We've seen very little on Lee, keep in mind. And the biggest problem here is we are treating passing as a single simple ability. Martinez is nowhere close to Lee in the footwork or mechanics of throwing, and he is especially nowhere close in being able to read defenses, meaning both before the play (checking to other plays based on what the defense shows, and other adjustments) and during the play (going through progressions).
Last year, at the beginning of the year, Lee was limited in his progressions. Martinez is as well, currently (breakdown is from the Rivals free board). When TMart is asked to go through multiple progressions on a play, they are usually in the same zone of the field - left, middle, right. Against Texas, when we opened it up and progressions were in different areas of the field, Martinez struggled making them, resulting in broken plays. Lee, right now, opens us up to having these wrinkles in the passing game, where his first progression might be in the left middle of the field, his second might be right deep, and his third might be middle short. Or something like that, I'm no expert personally.
When you think about it, those aren't really wrinkles either. Those are basic elements of a passing attack, without which we'll get murdered by defenses. Supposedly, Virginia Tech last year saw what we were doing with Lee and made us really pay for it. My guess is that's why we stepped it up a notch against Texas, something which Martinez didn't handle particularly well.
When Taylor is in, we can still put up competent passing statistics, but the way we get them is different. We depend on the threat of the QB taking off and running (which we really put the nation on notice for with the Wash/KSU games) to get our receivers more open. And then Taylor can throw it in their neighborhood. Some of his throws are good, some are bad. Quite a lot are bad, but this is masked by how open the receivers often are. When Taylor gets to Lee's level in the passing game, then DC's will have a real headache figuring out what to do. Until then, it's force him to beat you with his arm. A few execution missteps (Burkhead, Paul, et al.) and he can't.
The problem I think is, Taylor can't really attack defenses consistently through the air. We are in quite a bit of trouble in obvious passing situations, which we often seem to find ourselves in. With Taylor, we'll get amazing plays a certain percentage of the time, but blown plays quite frequently. We'll set ourselves up in a lot of bad situations, and sometimes we are going to be bailed out, but it's hard to count on. At the end of the day, often we will still be able to put up good numbers, even great numbers, and score a lot of points, so I'm not really bagging on this as doomed to failure. But there are weaknesses to this plan, which is lack of multiplicity and overdependence on the home run. A good defense has the blueprint now to beat it. Of course, we execute well and they won't - it's that simple.
So in summary: we can still move the ball through the air with Taylor, but that doesn't mean he isn't a world of difference as a passing quarterback than Lee. It isn't as simple as saying, "Taylor has made some good throws, and Lee has made some bad throws, so they must be pretty similar."
