In all seriousness, I don't think Martinez is that bad of a passer. He's not that good of a passer either. But he's more accurate than Eric Crouch was as a senior - he just doesn't have the pocket presence or knowledge of the system or experience that Crouch had. He's not as accurate as Frost or Frazier were, not yet anyways.
None of those guys were Peyton Manning, but that doesn't mean that they can't be incredibly successful in a system that fits them.
If you're comparing Martinez's passing ability to Kirk Cousins' passing ability, you're simply comparing apples to oranges. That's like comparing Martinez's running ability to Cousins' running ability. They're completely different types of players.
Last year, Martinez's passing ability wasn't our weakness, in all seriousness. Our inconsistency on offense, demonstrated most perfectly by our wide receivers' worst and best performances (Texas and then Oklahoma State) was our weakness early on. Later on, our weakness was lack of depth on the offensive line and at QB. When our guys got hurt, they still had to play, because they were still better than their backups. THAT was our problem. Not Taylor Martinez's passing ability - our problem was that when he got hurt, we didn't have anyone left that could run our offense. Zac Lee could run the snail version of our offense, but against Missouri that was worthless except for a big run by Helu - not much different than an injured Martinez against Oklahoma. Cody Green couldn't run our offense at all - they had to put Rex Burkhead at QB if they wanted to get into the endzone, and that was against a weak Colorado team for god's sake.
Criticism of Martinez's passing game is fair - he can certainly use improvement, it was a weakness in his overall game. But that's not why our offense struggled down the stretch. Great teams, teams that win national championships or conference championships - they either get lucky and make it through a season without their QB getting hurt - or they have such good depth behind/around their QB that when their QB gets hurt, they have a guy or two that can step in behind him.
Look at Oregon and Auburn last year - if Cam Newton goes down (or gets suspended), they lose. If Darron Thomas had gone down for more than one game against Washington, their championship hopes might have ended. But neither one of those teams were relying on a QB with two bad wheels to get to the BCS Title game. Auburn got lucky, Oregon got lucky and had depth. That and simply better consistency from the rest of their offense, is why they were better than us last year. Not because of Martinez's passing mechanics.
None of those guys were Peyton Manning, but that doesn't mean that they can't be incredibly successful in a system that fits them.
If you're comparing Martinez's passing ability to Kirk Cousins' passing ability, you're simply comparing apples to oranges. That's like comparing Martinez's running ability to Cousins' running ability. They're completely different types of players.
Last year, Martinez's passing ability wasn't our weakness, in all seriousness. Our inconsistency on offense, demonstrated most perfectly by our wide receivers' worst and best performances (Texas and then Oklahoma State) was our weakness early on. Later on, our weakness was lack of depth on the offensive line and at QB. When our guys got hurt, they still had to play, because they were still better than their backups. THAT was our problem. Not Taylor Martinez's passing ability - our problem was that when he got hurt, we didn't have anyone left that could run our offense. Zac Lee could run the snail version of our offense, but against Missouri that was worthless except for a big run by Helu - not much different than an injured Martinez against Oklahoma. Cody Green couldn't run our offense at all - they had to put Rex Burkhead at QB if they wanted to get into the endzone, and that was against a weak Colorado team for god's sake.
Criticism of Martinez's passing game is fair - he can certainly use improvement, it was a weakness in his overall game. But that's not why our offense struggled down the stretch. Great teams, teams that win national championships or conference championships - they either get lucky and make it through a season without their QB getting hurt - or they have such good depth behind/around their QB that when their QB gets hurt, they have a guy or two that can step in behind him.
Look at Oregon and Auburn last year - if Cam Newton goes down (or gets suspended), they lose. If Darron Thomas had gone down for more than one game against Washington, their championship hopes might have ended. But neither one of those teams were relying on a QB with two bad wheels to get to the BCS Title game. Auburn got lucky, Oregon got lucky and had depth. That and simply better consistency from the rest of their offense, is why they were better than us last year. Not because of Martinez's passing mechanics.
Last edited by a moderator: