Armstrong at QB
- Thread starter Eric the Red
- Start date
Enhance
Administrator
I think most defensive strategies will still be focused on limiting the run and forcing TA to throw. The points cg_8 brings up are valid, but there's also TA's 53% completion percentage and youth to factor in. Miami has, without question, the best athletes of any team we'll have faced so far and the most talent. If they can consistently slow the run game with 5-6 guys it could be a long day for TA. Any team would be crazy, at this point, to think they're going to beat Nebraska by limiting the Husker passing game. That's not what makes this team tick.
knapplc
Active member
Every single quarterback in America, from Pop Warner to last year's Super Bowl Champions, does this. If anything you're criticizing so heavily was unique to Armstrong you'd have a point.
It isn't. You don't.
Branno
Donor
You'd have a valid point if every other QB had a completion % in the low 50's. Are you so high on TA that you honestly think he has no room for improvement?
74Hunter
Banned
If the super bowl winning QB only completes 52% of his passes and has a history of turnover problems, he'd earn all of the criticism he'd get. Lets not compare apples to orangutans.
sd'sker
Banned
knapplc
Active member
We aren't talking about completion percentage, we're talking about yards and points left on the field, and opponents dropping potential interceptions.
If we want to complain about 50% completion percentages, let's start with Tommie Frazier's career sub-.500 completion percentage, and ask ourselves why we were able to win so many games with that kind of quarterback.
Or Scott Frost's 54% completion percentage.
Or Eric Crouch's career 51% completion percentage.
74Hunter
Banned
Again, apples and orangutans. They played in totally different systems and 50% won't cut when the coach wants a 50/50 run/pass ratio.
Frazier and Frost won MNCs. Crouch won the Big 12, the Heisman, and played in a national championship game.
Armstrong lost us the chance to win a weak division with his play against MSU.
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NUpolo8
Banned
sd'sker
Banned
msu was in that division. msu is the last respectable team in the B1G. and if memory of people yelling at me on huskerboard serves, it was a pretty close loss.
edit: even if we beat msu, we weren't winning the division.
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74Hunter
Banned
Branno
Donor
In a thread full of straw men that's the pot calling the kettle black.
No one is calling to replace TA with anyone just yet. But we've played 3 weeks against our weakest competition of the year, and TA has been about average as a passer. Think back to last year, you always hear the 7-1 as a starter thrown around but no one talks about his 9-8 TD/INT ratio.
TA has a history (albeit a short one) of coughing the ball up at the most inopportune time (the INT against NW last year that put us in the position to have to throw a hail mary, the multiple turnovers against MSU every time we seemed to be clawing our way back in, the INT's against Georgia that almost cost us the game, and the pick-6 against McNeese State that swung the momentum to an FCS school that we didn't get back until 20 seconds left in the game). Also remember that TA threw multiple passes that against better defenses would be interceptions.
There is a huge difference between seeing actual real shortcomings and wanting to fix them, and calling for the starting QB to change.
But just because I'm sick and tired of all of this bullsh#t here is my list of TA's plusses and minuses:
+
- Throws a really nice long ball I actually agree with most that he has a good throwing motion, and a cannon for an arm
[*]Runs the option well
[*]Seems to be a good leader
- I'm not in the locker room, but you hear it enough from varied sources and you have to assume where there is smoke there is fire
[*]Wants to improve
- The guy gave himself a C rating for the season so far, I like that he recognizes he needs to IMPROVE AS QB
-
- Overthrows wide-open receivers from time to time A good portion of his incompletions, and most likely due to his being a sophomore.
- This should improve as he gets more experience, the game slows down for him, and he trusts his arm more
[*]Forces the big play
- He seems to always want to make a big play, and forces passes into tight coverage
- When it works, it's great and we get a huge gain. When it doesn't we normally go 3 and 0 resulting in a tired defense (see McNeese St)
- These are going to be the passes that go from incompletions to interceptions once we start playing against B1G secondaries
[*]Zone-read
- It seems that most of the time he decides whether he is going to hand off or keep it before the play starts, as good as he is in the option game he should be making the read as the play develops and not pre-snap
- This could be the OC not trusting TA to make the read and calling it from the booth like Tmart's first 2 years
Do I want Stanton or Fyfe to be the starter? No. But I have honest, valid criticisms of TA and it seems that anytime there is even the slightest criticism of TA, people go CRAZY.
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NUpolo8
Banned
You mean besides your placement of blame for that game?
I suggest if you're upset with Nebraska's development of QB talent, and you may have good reason to be with Tommy and a former Elite 11 QB languishing in the third string, that you should ask how these kids are being coached. And why, specifically there is a dedicated coach for a position that the OC. has to be shamed into using in a press conference and not one to actually help along a QB in what appears to be an overly complicated system.
I mean, that's probably easier than demanding a 20 year old "get it", then judging him when inevitably fails.
sd'sker
Banned
before people say, no one else has a dedicated qb coach; no one cared that much about strength and conditioning in the early 90's. sometimes it is nice to be trendsetters.