Adrian Martinez

J-MAGIC said:
Rewatching our games, a lot of people's complaints about Adrian are issues that oftentimes stem from the line or receivers. That's not to say he never misses a receiver or read or doesn't do boneheaded stuff every so often, but our pass pro was horrendous at times last year and we had no one getting separation beside Wandale. Overall Adrian is vastly a plus for our offense far more often than he's a negative and if we all expect some improvements in pass pro and at receiver, I think he is primed for a big year.

I'm fully aware that the "Pass was complete/incomplete so the QB must be good/bad" crowd will not care about this but FWIW I think he's about to go off.
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I'm thinking about all the plays last year when Adrian is waiting for receivers to get separation, and a huge chunk of field opens up, and everyone in the stands and watching at home and announcing the game can see 20 yards or more for the taking and starts yelling "run!" but Martinez forces the incomplete pass instead. 

I want to see him get back to the "i'll take whatever you're stupid enough to give me" mode that makes dual threat quarterbacks a threat. That makes the pro-set plays work better, too. Opposing DC have a reason to fear Martinez.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I'm thinking about all the plays last year when Adrian is waiting for receivers to get separation, and a huge chunk of field opens up, and everyone in the stands and watching at home and announcing the game can see 20 yards or more for the taking and starts yelling "run!" but Martinez forces the incomplete pass instead. 

I want to see him get back to the "i'll take whatever you're stupid enough to give me" mode that makes dual threat quarterbacks a threat. That makes the pro-set plays work better, too. Opposing DC have a reason to fear Martinez.
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Can you provide me some specific examples of him holding the ball too long and not running? Because I've rewatched every game after he took the starting job back over and he almost always made his first read and then looked to scramble if it wasn't there. If anything I felt he was too eager to run and was missing open receivers. 

 
J-MAGIC said:
Can you provide me some specific examples of him holding the ball too long and not running? Because I've rewatched every game after he took the starting job back over and he almost always made his first read and then looked to scramble if it wasn't there. If anything I felt he was too eager to run and was missing open receivers. 
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I would agree with you.  I think a lot of people still have images of 2019 stuck in their head.  No doubt, he waited too long to run on many occasions that season.  Last year I sure don't remember many.  

 
J-MAGIC said:
Can you provide me some specific examples of him holding the ball too long and not running? Because I've rewatched every game after he took the starting job back over and he almost always made his first read and then looked to scramble if it wasn't there. If anything I felt he was too eager to run and was missing open receivers. 
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Nope. I didn't record the games and haven't rewatched them. Can't say for sure whether this happened before or after the McCaffrey starts. I just remember me and my buddy yelling at the screen, and the in-game announcers making the same observation. I don't know how many times it happened before I considered it a trend, but I'm going with at least three. 

Yeah, the knock on running quarterbacks is that they abandon the pocket too early. Sometimes Adrian did that, too. But the bigger problem with Adrian the last couple years was his in-the-moment decision making, and that could cut both ways. 

If you've rewatched every game, did you notice any changes in second-half playcalling and execution? It always looked to me that things that worked great for the Huskers in the first half didn't work in the second half. Either the defense adjusted, the Huskers started pressing, or both. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Nope. I didn't record the games and haven't rewatched them. Can't say for sure whether this happened before or after the McCaffrey starts. I just remember me and my buddy yelling at the screen, and the in-game announcers making the same observation. I don't know how many times it happened before I considered it a trend, but I'm going with at least three. 

Yeah, the knock on running quarterbacks is that they abandon the pocket too early. Sometimes Adrian did that, too. But the bigger problem with Adrian the last couple years was his in-the-moment decision making, and that could cut both ways. 

If you've rewatched every game, did you notice any changes in second-half playcalling and execution? It always looked to me that things that worked great for the Huskers in the first half didn't work in the second half. Either the defense adjusted, the Huskers started pressing, or both. 
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Your first paragraph would apply to about 99% of D1 QBs based on analysis from armchair QBs. 
 

No one is going to constantly make the perfect reads. Does it happen more to AM than others? Debatable.
 

If you look at our QB utilization the last 3 years; our QBs have had more on their shoulders as it relates to running the football. Last year AM was completing 70% of his throws so the stats say he was hitting the open guy or running. Issue is he was running, and fumbling, quite a bit. 
 

Hopefully we have some trust in our RB to make the QB run trend go down, but I’m not sure that would serve us well. QB run is a big piece of the way frost calls his games. 
 

 
VizionNE said:
Your first paragraph would apply to about 99% of D1 QBs based on analysis from armchair QBs. 

 
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I'm definitely an armchair QB, but I also recall Adrian Martinez, Scott Frost and a slew of college football analysts agree that Adrian wasn't making decisions as well as he had his freshman year, and that his confidence may have been shaken a bit. Being replaced by a QB who was even quicker to run the ball probably didn't help. Or maybe it did, to your point about watching only his post-McCaffrey performances. 

I know this has blown up on another thread, but it really wasn't a contested viewpoint, nor was it tied to the quality of Adrian's supporting cast. Nor was it Adrian-hating. This is his senior year. Adrian needs to put his complete game together. I think he will. 

 
Lorewarn said:
Anyone care to go back and watch the tape to find out how many of Adrian's nation-leading fumbles were caused by errant snaps?
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I believe the rule of thumb is the fumble is charged to the last player who possessed it.  So it wouldn't be charged to a QB on a bad snap unless they caught it then fumbled it, which I don't recall happening much.  Likewise, a fumble on a handoff is charged to the QB because the RB never really had control of it.

 
Mavric said:
I believe the rule of thumb is the fumble is charged to the last player who possessed it.  So it wouldn't be charged to a QB on a bad snap unless they caught it then fumbled it, which I don't recall happening much.  Likewise, a fumble on a handoff is charged to the QB because the RB never really had control of it.
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I've never been good at finding fumble stats in general, but if that's the case, then there should be a paper trail of Cam Jurgens having several fumbles somewhere right? 

 
Backwards passes/laterals that the receiver doesn't catch count as fumbles too, don't they? Hence why it's a live ball.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I'm thinking about all the plays last year when Adrian is waiting for receivers to get separation, and a huge chunk of field opens up, and everyone in the stands and watching at home and announcing the game can see 20 yards or more for the taking and starts yelling "run!" but Martinez forces the incomplete pass instead. 

I want to see him get back to the "i'll take whatever you're stupid enough to give me" mode that makes dual threat quarterbacks a threat. That makes the pro-set plays work better, too. Opposing DC have a reason to fear Martinez.
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That’s been a problem for him, but I think the bigger problem he has had is that he doesn’t anticipate or see that a receiver is going to break away from a defender.  He waits until the receiver has already broken away and many times that’s too late or doesn’t recognize the second or third option will be breaking open but he never gets to them on his progression.  
 

 
J-MAGIC said:
Can you provide me some specific examples of him holding the ball too long and not running? Because I've rewatched every game after he took the starting job back over and he almost always made his first read and then looked to scramble if it wasn't there. If anything I felt he was too eager to run and was missing open receivers. 
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My recollection of last year was this...I remember thinking "go through your reads!!!"...ALOT 

Edit: in all fairness I also felt like we had just 2 read progressions...a short and deep..and deep was the 4th option

 
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Lorewarn said:
I've never been good at finding fumble stats in general, but if that's the case, then there should be a paper trail of Cam Jurgens having several fumbles somewhere right? 
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I'm not sure we actually fumbled any of them.  I suppose there was one or two but my recollection is Martinez caught most of them, it just messed with the timing and the progression of the play.

Also, if it's on the snap it might go down as a team fumble as opposed to giving it to the center.

Toe said:
Backwards passes/laterals that the receiver doesn't catch count as fumbles too, don't they? Hence why it's a live ball.
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Yes, they are fumbles that would be charged to the QB

 
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Archy1221 said:
That’s been a problem for him, but I think the bigger problem he has had is that he doesn’t anticipate or see that a receiver is going to break away from a defender.  He waits until the receiver has already broken away and many times that’s too late or doesn’t recognize the second or third option will be breaking open but he never gets to them on his progression.  
 
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I wonder how much of that is because he couldn’t trust his receivers to be where they were supposed to be. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
I wonder how much of that is because he couldn’t trust his receivers to be where they were supposed to be. 
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It can also mean the opposing team's secondary is pretty good. You don't have to be super fast to be a good receiver, but it helps. 

One thing I'd love Husker quarterbacks to do is the thing Scott Frost did better than any Husker QB:  play-action fakes.  Use the running game to set up the passing game, and then really sell the fake. Watch clips of Frost seemingly stick the ball in the gut of the RB, then step back to watch the play unfold, then see that he still has the ball cradled against his hip. The defense only needs to be fooled for a second for a receiver to get the separation he needs. 

Armstrong and the two Martinez's just went through the motions of play action fakes, but Frost, Frazier and Gill knew how to sell them.

 
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