An Offense That Is Just Good Enough

The worst part of the offense is the turnovers that they had last year. Martinez has to do a much better job of cutting down his turnovers as giving opponents short fields and losing a possession is what killed them last year in their losses. I don’t have much confidence in that happening with him because he carries the ball like a loaf of bread and throws som balls to covered receivers instead of checking down to someone else (he also telegraphed who he was passing to so defenses could play off that receiver very easily).

Question? What would happen if NU went to more of an option offense like the one Tommie ran, on a more consistent basis?  Under Watson, NU didn’t seem to have an identity on offense.  Taylor CAN’T throw the ball like a QB needs to, PERIOD!  He would be much more effective, when he did throw, if it was a surprise.  The defense is going to carry NU throughout the season, but it will be up to Taylor and his play that will determine whether or not NU has a championship caliber team.  Taylor NEEDS to stop turning the ball over and NEEDS to make better decisions.  I hate putting so much pressure on one kid, in team sport, but he is the lynchpin to the season.

if NU lays an offensive egg this year, they should hire Chip Kelly after he is forced to resign this summer for cheating.  Maybe they can make him a receivers coach or something.

There are so many questions on the offensive side of the ball and they are not little ones either.  Besides having next to no pocket presence, showing little ability to make progressions, and a failure to execute the mental aspects of being a QB, Martinez needs to take gigantic steps forward.  Not big steps, but gigantic ones.  We’re not talking about a 2nd year returning player who got better as the year went on last year.  He got worse as the season pushed ahead.  It is not a good sign that somebody can get game experience as a first year player and not get better.  With Martinez that is the case.  And for people who say he was injured, well Coach Pelini put him in there, and Martinez did not try to pull himself out, so he must’ve been healthy enough to make plays.  In essence he is still a project.  A fascinating idea, intriguing potential, but that’s about it.  He has to be able to make reads and throw from the pocket, or you will see another replay of last year. . .

Besides that we’re in a new conference, new offense, and new terminology to further add to the issues to address.  And as if this is not enough we have an offensive line over the past two years that commits penalty after penalty, prone to mental mistake after mental mistake, AND have to break in some new, young starters.  Can’t forget ball security either, that has been a problem for two years running now.  The fundamentals on the offensive side of the ball are just not where they need to be.  It took two years for Coach Pelini to build up The Blackshirts.  Let us hope that it will not take that long for the offense to become a productive unit. . .

In closing I would say that lighting up Oklahoma State and Kansas State should be expected.  Is that the standard for success for Nebraska football?  Those two schools didn’t exactly play top flight defense last year, or frankly for any of the previous few ones either. For those two examples I can give you South Dakota State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma as cases to be considered for what happened last year when teams played their assignments and forced Martinez to execute mentally, from the pocket.  He just never did it.  And he never showed any signs of seeing things better as the year went on.  That just can’t be too reassuring.  There’s plenty of teams in The Big 10 who can line up a space eater over Caputo, spy Martinez with 1/2 defenders, and play the remaining assignments man-to-man. . .

Relax people…Martinez was hurt. His primary back up, Zac Lee was hurt, again. The third string admitted he didn’t fit/county run Watson’s offense. The remaining qb’s on the team were scout team caliber,.. or a running back. Martinez had to play in the Big XII championship and bowl. NU had no one else. This year we have a stronger back-up, and 3rd stringer. It will all be okay.

I believe that T-magic will improve and help make the offense awesome again.  Bo has also invested heavily in getting top notch offensive lineman but also added another set of eyes to help with the offensive line.  We need to support our Huskers and stop complaining.

dc in la is right, we will be okay.

DC IN LA AND MARK from VA

Im with you guys, well be fine!!

I agree I think he will b fine. Other people seem to forget he was a freshman last year. He has grown up and has goten smarter.  And if it dosnt work out like mentioned b4 we got decent backups

It just seems for the moment that as an identity we’re something akin to a 2000 Baltimore Ravens-like defense that carries an offense that barely has a pulse. Truth be told if I had to take getting gashed, gored, and slayed for 500+ yds against my defense or a prolific offensive fireworks display, I’ll take having the great defense every time. I’ll take that every time. To get your defense destroyed is just awful to endure. . .

The hope? The hope is with Coach Beck as much as anyone. What we gotta do is swing the box. Make the defense chase side-to-side with bubbles, slips, screens, perimeter zone and then gash inside on pre-snap reads. Spread it out to isolate and attack the box. Once those assignments are blown it’s punishment all day at will.  You’re gonna see some of our old stuff too. We’re going to run some I, and option-I principles from time to time.  The cool part would be the run audibles out of the no-huddle. QB Iso, WB-like options with Turner, and traps could be beyond lethal. And we’ll even get to see the play-action return as a weapon for us moving ahead. So we’re going the right direction. I do think Coach Beck can do something big here. There’s no reason to believe that his impact won’t be as big as Coach Carl Pelini’s was and is.  We’re going to get there. Whether it’s with Martinez or not, by the time Carnes gets his chance he will be more than ready to go, with a very, very deep offensive line in front of him, and some nice weapons everywhere around him. In short, we’ll sort this out. This year or next. It’s a question of when and with whom.  If Martinez can do it, if he can really do it this year, then we play somewhere nice this January1st, and spend the following 3 years as a serious national title contender. If he can’t then we still go somewhere nice Jan 1st (just not The Rose Bowl), and spend the following 3 years as a serious national contender. And if any Big 10 fans disagree with that, or think it’s a little too much swagger for somebody on the block since July 1st.  Well Michigan got a Gator on 7-6. We’re gonna be better than 7-6 even if our offense makes no improvements and we gotta change QB’s midseason. I’m just sayin. . .

James Moore,
It is obvious that you have never had a high ankle sprain.

Having had 2 of them, I can say that I would have rather broken my leg after one. They are agonizingly painful and VERY slow to heal. When you don’t have it immobilized for 2 months, it just stays injured.

The kid was just barely able to hobble around enough to hand the ball off. The fact that he gritted it out for the team while taking all of that heat is commendable. Not many could.

Also, don’t forget that he was the Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the Year last year.

The kid deserves our respect.

You guys are the biggest bunch of Mambi Pambi’s I’ve ever seen!
I can’t believe how negative some of you guys are on here towards a guy YOU nicknamed T-Magic! It’s disgusting. No wonder why Pelini doesn’t like talking with boneheads like you out there. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves…or slapped, one of the two. Were you not watching? I don’t know what Taylor Martinez you were watching last season, but the one I watched came within a whisker of being only the third player in NCAA history to both throw and run for over 1000 yards in a single season…as a freshman. The Taylor Martinez I watched last season was the Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the year. The Taylor Martinez I saw last year broke at least one NE freshman or school record. The Taylor Martinez I saw last year was only a freshman and had a better season in basically one half of a season than 90% of the quarterbacks playing in college football. And then he got hurt. Really hurt. An upper ankle sprain on the right, turf toe on the left and you guys can’t see why he may not have had the best pocket presence? Are you kidding me? Only 95 yards rushing after that and not much more passing and everyone wonders why (including some NE writers who should know better)? The team followed him straight downhill…a not too often mentioned leadership artifact. And when did that happen? Post injury. Fact is, when he was healthy, the offense was unstoppable. When he wasn’t, the team was about the same. That shows me the team was following him.
Now, for the football “guru’s” that are disguising themselves as NE fans that want to mention the SDSU game, come on man…they took a breath. It’s awful hard for Eagles to get ‘up’ for a game against ducks…and the Texas game…one or two caught passes and we win that game easily. We had our chances to win and whoever he threw the ball too dropped them. He can’t throw and catch at the same time. The dropped balls weren’t Taylors fault. Even with an injured quarterback with no real back up, we still only lost to Oklahoma by 3 points! Granted, we beat ourselves in all of those losses, but lets not throw maybe our next Heisman winner under the bus! NOBODY beat us last year, we did that to ourselves.
We have so much talent and depth and excitement on the offensive side of the ball it’s unbelievable. Granted it’s young, but that’s a good thing. There is so much to look forward to, and it’s just going to keep getting better and better. Nothing but good. There is absolutely no reason, if Beck and the gang can get it together that we can’t make a run for a National tittle this year…or next. Do you not think that they are working hard on all those things that need to be addressed? Of course they are. Pelini is building his offense in the same vein as his defense, and I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing it. I’ll be the one cheering for our offense, while all of you glass half empty fools will just have to sit in that great big pile of crap your espousing.
Go Taylor Martinez and Go Big Red!

I too am optimistic about the offense with the changes taking place.  The biggest wild card in my mind is depth at RB. Overall,  I think the new O will turn some heads and highlight the talent of young Martinez.  Our speed on offense is going to be hard to match up with.

remember how raw denard robinson was from michigan his freshman year…......remember how well he did this year with no defense and no help on offense…..

there is no watts, decent depth qb wise a better proven OC, and more weapons this year. i have been hard a on tmagic but then i forget hes only a fresh about to become a soph. frazier,crouch and frost were not lights out during their freshman campaign.

we will be fine and we will be able to use or speed to hurt the bigten

A friendlier, gentler me…man do i get worked up about this! I love Nebraska football…what can I say. But we have to remember, Martinez was just a freshman last year. Were there question marks? Sure. But I think after his injury, the kid simply had never been in those situations and frankly, didn’t know what to do. Texas did a whale of a job defending him. He will greatly improve this year and like some of you have said, our offensive line will be better, we have a boatload of speed now and a lot of help on offense…and no Sean Watson. How much of those troubles can be put in his lap? We’ll never know, but for a freshman, he did pretty well.

Bill, I have been injured before with a high ankle sprain.  Without too many details and trying to keep it short I was on athletic scholarship for basketball and played football too in college.  I understand the nature of the injury.  Yes it is not easy, but I will submit to you that Coach Pelini and Martinez both thought he was good enough to still be in there to make plays.  If you put him out there, then you’re saying that ‘this is my guy and he can make plays for us.’ It’s difficult to have it both ways.  Because of his injury, it was the catalyst for exposing that he didn’t have the fundamentals to play QB, last season.  We’ll see what we get this year soon enough. . .

PE, never called him T-Magic and not sure who came up with it. Disgusting? Sir, with respect football is 11 players carrying out 11 assignments to make one play work.  If one person doesn’t get it done, then we don’t accomplish anything as a team. And “guru’s” disguising themselves as Husker fans?  What are we all Stalinist now?  Gotta tow the line and not deviate from it or you get lit up for it?  You get to decide who is and is not a Husker fan according to what you approve or disapprove of?  And as for ‘getting up’ for a game against South Dakota State, well would Dr. Osborne allow somebody to take a game (let alone a play) off on the football field?  Probably not.  Did anyone say ‘man we gotta play Akron and I’m just gonna half-step it today cause they’re a fattened calf for the slaughter?  No, Nebraska football doesn’t do that.  Nebraska football stresses finishing plays, playing complete games, and holding oneself accountable as defining principles (Unity Council anyone?).  And on the whole I did not question the direction of the offense (I was quite complimentary about it in my posting and regarding Coach Beck as well), only the fundamentals of the QB.  How did the Spring Game turn out?  4-13 with a pick right?

The offense couldn’t count on Martinez on a regular basis after the injury, and as good as he was over the first half of the season, he was almost as bad over the second half. To put it in perspective, he he ran for just 95 yards over the final seven games of the year after running for 112 yards or more in five of the first regular games.  And those first seven games were?  Western Kentucky, Idaho, Washington, South Dakota State, Kansas State, Texas, and Oklahoma State.  Injury or not, only Texas of that bunch played defense.  For the 1st half of the season the competition was far from murder’s row.  When we had to play Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma the offense combined for a total of 39 points in those three games.  Lots of reasons for why the offense struggled down the stretch, but QB was a big part of that decline in output.  We’re not supposed to take ANY of that into consideration?

“I’ll be the one cheering for our offense, while all of you glass half empty fools will just have to sit in that great big pile of crap your espousing. . .”

Heck, I guess we are all Stalinists now. . .