Where is the Big Play?

Fuzzy

New member
I was driving back from physical therapy today, when I heard them talking about the lack of big plays on offense on 1620. I don't have all the numbers they threw out there. But the first one stood out the most. Last season Nebraska had 33 plays over 30 yds. So far this year, we have had 17.

We ranted about how explosive this offense was gonna be this year, but it would seem the Huskers have been lacking in that department. Some blame could fall on play-calling, but me. I blame the lack of Taylor Martinez. Say what you want about his throwing motion and decision making in the pocket. You could count on a healthy T-mart to run over 30 yds at least once a game.

I'm sure folks will argue and contradict what my belief is.

 
Totally agree that most of it is that Martinez hasn't been healthy or on the field at all.

That also scares me trying to figure out how we're going to move the ball Saturday. It's going to be pretty hard to move the ball 4-5 yards at a time all the way down the field.

 
After all the grief we heard the last couple of years about the offense "relying on the big play," this is kinda funny.
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I agree and say that it's because we lost our 5th year senior Taylor Martinez who was likely to bust at least one big run a game while healthy. We have a smaller amount because we have two QBs who are seeing significant playing time here at Nebraska. With Tommy he is adjusting to full game speed and still fully learning how to read a defense. You can rep plays everyday but nothing beats game time. We have a lot of athletes on our offense and as time goes on Tommy will get better at reading defenses and be able to make the big play throws and our number of big plays will increase.

 
Tommy Armstrong is slow and anytime he throws it more than 15 yards there's either nobody around or it's out of bounds.
I actually shot some people some PMs in fall camp that said that you would see Ron Kellogg in before you saw Tommy in the first few weeks because he still wasn't at full speed after they opened up his knee again in August.

 
TM's ability to keep the D honest has had a big impact on this IMO. He accounted for a lot of these plays, he also made the defense adjust to account for this making it possible for other people to make these big plays. Additionally, him and Bell had a connection which accounted for most of our deep pass plays I think. We haven't had a big play RB since Helu but Ameer still breaks one now and then.

 
I can't see Armstrong breaking a run over 40 yds. Martinez would be able to break at least 1 or 2 even when we lost. I think it in order to have big play success, we need to look in other areas than QB, like a big run from Abdullah or big pass play from Bell or another receiver.

 
Just be patient and watch the chemistry develop, big plays will come. It will just be in a different form now. That 16 yard catch and run by AA on 4 th n 15 is the biggest play on the season so far. HUGE play just a different type. Might not be huge chunks of yardage but the fire is just starting...give it time

 
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