Taylor Martinez is indeed the man

Is Taylor Martinez a head case?

Can he, a notably quiet guy even among his teammates, ever truly step up as a leader for this offense?

Can he stay healthy?

There are certainly a host of questions revolving around the quarterback position at Nebraska, not the least of which is if redshirt freshman Brion Carnes can handle being the defacto number two now that Cody Green is off to test the waters elsewhere.

But this is about Martinez. We know it is. And to his credit he showed early in the season last year that when he’s healthy he’s one of the most dangerous running threats from the QB position in the country. He even showed his passing-prowess against Oklahoma State, when he threw five touchdowns against the admittedly dreadful Cowboy pass defense, totaling over 300 yards against no interceptions.

His health wasn’t the only issue, however. I am quite sure those in Husker land hope that the second-year starter will get his ball-handling issues under control. If he wasn’t just coughing it up, he would make inexplicable throws to nobody in particular whenever the defensive heat was on. To say he was irresponsible with the football is like saying “Avatar” had “some” special effects.

Back to the health issue, though, that seems to be even more pertinent right now anyway as Cody Green, the almost-but-not-quite backup last year is now off to find a better opportunity with a team that runs an offense more to his liking and more in line with his particular skill set.

In reference to him almost being a back up versus being the actual back up, I say that only because that when the Husker coaches would finally opt for someone other than Martinez, which wasn’t often despite the fact that it looked at times like he could barely walk – when that point of desperation came, where did Green line up?

Well, under center course.

Wrong.

He spent much of the time split out wide while then sophomore running back Rex Burkhead was well behind center in the “Wildcat” formation. To the credit of the offensive staff, it actually worked. But this only illustrated just how bad the situation was, because for the better part of the second half of the season, even if Martinez couldn’t go, Head Coach Bo Pelini still threw him out there. And if he really couldn’t go, Burkhead seemed to become the unofficial number two.

Welcome Brion Carnes.

I would have added Jamal Turner to that mix, but no sooner did the fab frosh arrive on campus this January, he was moved from quarterback to receiver. Boasting quickness, speed, a vert and just a certain playmaking panache, he didn’t have a hard time breaking into a lineup of receivers which is woefully short on real experience. He even entertained the Husker fans during the Spring Game in the return game (both punts and kicks) as well as a somersault into the end zone following a TD reception.

Coach Pelini said that he wouldn’t have moved Turner to wideout if he thought he was going to have to move him back.

You think he is going to move him back now?

I’ll go with an early negative on that, as I don’t think Green was ever really considered part of the mix despite all the coach speak that told you otherwise. Green saw for himself the changing offense and how it relied on a certain amount of explosion out of the gate when it came to running – an explosion that the 6-4, 245 lbs. quarterback simply didn’t have.

So Carnes becomes number two without taking an actual snap. Well, unless you count the Spring Game. And we know fans do, as we have seen more than a share of Spring Game phenoms dubbed as the next…whatever, only to never actually see them show up in an actual game of consequence most of their football career.

Hey, us media types or in my case, former media types – we did the same thing.

I loved Alik Tillery.

moving on….

Brion was the man, though, boasting by far the best passing numbers of the glorified scrimmage, showing poise, quickness and patience in the passing game. Martinez on the other hand, looked like Martinez. That is to say his throwing motion made you cringe, his accuracy was suspect and even during the Spring, months removed from the bowl game debacle against Washington, he said he still felt that ankle of his give him pause from time to time.

I wonder if that’s still an issue heading into the Fall, and with the amount of time removed from when he played in that final practice of the Spring, will it be time to ask if his injury is mental and not physical?

But hopefully for the Huskers that won’t come up to open the season.

Speaking of offense, it’s Tim Beck’s baby with Shawn Watson off to Louisville, so he can hopefully get back to an offense he likes to coach. That leaves Beck to coach an offense that seemed at times to be about as close to the full blown option as we have seen in Lincoln since Frank Solich was the head man at NU.

Beck said during the Spring that this would be an attacking offense. To me that would imply that this offense didn’t do that in his mind last year. He must have meant the second half, because Nebraska was tearing teams up for most of the first half, albeit except for that hiccup against Texas and the lackluster performance against South Dakota State. Oh, and let’s not forget eight balls put on the ground against Idaho, all but three of those they somehow got back.

We’ll get to that last part here in a second, but back to this new offense.

Nobody was complaining about the offense when Taylor was healthy. Anyone who watched the Longhorn game knew that three dropped passes that were certain touchdowns had a lot more to do with the Huskers losing yet again to Texas, than the ineffectiveness of the entire offense. And anyone who watched the SDSU game saw that one team wanted to be there in Lincoln, and it wasn’t the team in red.

So, “attacking” offense to me means…..well, not a hell of a lot. I think it’s something you say when you are trying to convince people that it won’t stink as bad as it did last year.

But I’m cynical like that, I guess.

Oh, speaking of cynical, am I the only one who thinks that just because it says “coach” on your shirt (figuratively speaking), it doesn’t mean you can coach every single position on the field, especially if you have never coached it before?

When Tim Beck was also made the quarterbacks coach, I looked at his resume’ on Huskers.com. I don’t see “QB” listed anywhere in regard to positions he’s coached prior to being named that here in Lincoln. And this is yet another cynical side to me, but in my estimation there are two positions that you can’t just pick up and coach if you have never coached it before. At least at this level and certainly at the next. That would be cornerback and quarterback.

There’s no doubt Beck understands offenses. He’s been directly involved in those in some regard at nearly every level before he joined the Big Red. But does that make you a quarterback coach?

If you are the glass-half-full type, you can look at what Brion Carnes did without knowing if he had done similar things in practice this year or the year prior and there ya go, that’s proof that Beck is getting it done. And then you will look at Martinez and Green and say that…well, they were doing that last year, too.

Right.

That’s it.

They were doing that last year, too.

Since Taylor is the only one of the duo back for this season, I’d think most fans would actually want him to get better.

Maybe he will, but I’m going to take the cautious approach and see if he actually does.

Which kind of runs full circle back to the biggest problem the Huskers had last year, and an issue that Beck said he had a system for dealing with over the Spring.

Turnovers.

Lots of turnovers.

A ridiculous amount of turnovers.

With this blog format, I won’t be spewing out too many numbers unless that’s the specific purpose of the thing. I will give most the benefit of the doubt that they will have enough knowledge of the subject that I don’t have to keep rehashing the mathematical feats or frustrations from a year or years prior.

But with that said, here ya go:

45 and 16

That’s fumbles put on the ground and fumbles ultimately lost.

45 to 16

The first number should make you cringe. It should actually scare you to death. Out of 120 teams in the FBS, you know who had more?

nobody

Not only that, nobody had 40 or more

Only three teams had more than 30

Yeah, it was that bad. And that’s not even counting the interceptions.

Yet, with a nation-topping (or in this case would it be “bottoming?”) 45 balls put on the ground, the Huskers “only” lost 16, which basically means they might have been, at least in that regard, the luckiest team I have ever seen.

And then you throw in the noted Husker defense, which was so good at getting the ball back, that they managed to keep the Huskers ranked in the top half of the country in turnover margin.

There’s a funny stat about fumbles recovered. On NCAA.com, it shows the North Carolina State defense led the country last year with 20. And you can imagine that they probably forced a few of those along the way. Yet Nebraska’s offense, obviously trying very hard not to turn the ball over, got nine more fumble recoveries than them.

Come on, NCAA, where’s the love?

Yeah, I know; I’m taking cynical to the level of smart-ass. But come on, if you have followed football more than, ohhhhh….five minutes, you know turnovers don’t win you games when you are the one turning it over.

OK, back to the quarterback as this entire thing has been more or less about.

Martinez finished in the top 40 in the country in pass efficiency last year.

Yeah, I’m not kidding.

Did you know that in order to be even ranked by the NCAA in that category you have to have a minimum of 15 attempts per game, which over a 13-game season would equate to 195?

Guess how many Martinez had.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

OK, he had 196.

10 touchdowns, seven interceptions and he threw 59.18 percent of his passes complete. Not exactly blowing anyone’s doors off, but in this offense, which I will just assume won’t be a monumental shift in philosophy from what they did last year – that’s not completely horrible for a true option QB.

Now, I know that the common knee-jerk response to Spring Game performances is to start assuming what you see in the Spring will manifest itself in the Fall. But I think we have all learned to our dismay and sometimes to our delight, that’s often not the case.

Brion Carnes could indeed be the next starting quarterback for the Huskers. But it’s way too early for him to be put out there with the pressure to perform in an actual game. He should get reps, but not the starting spot.

This is, once again, about Martinez. It’s his show, potentially his team and perhaps his time.

However, he’ll have to answer a few questions along the way:

Can he stay healthy?
Can he control his spontaneous mental hiccups when the pressure is on him?
Can he hold onto a ball?

There are many more of course. But those three seem to me to be the most relevant in regard to where he was as a quarterback last year, and where he needs to be.

It seems that for years now we have been saying or at least implying that as the starting quarterback goes, so will this team. With all the questions on defense, I don’t know that, that is the case this year. But there is no doubt that the Huskers, if they are going to be able to survive and possibly thrive an absolutely brutal schedule in their first year of Big Ten play, this position has to be solid the entire year.