Armstrong Leading the QB Race

Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
NUpolo8 said:
Man, you don't have to call him ugly.
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We all know that Zac Lee is the best looking quarterback we've had in ages okay. That is a given. I mean, that smile? More infectious than Frost's ginger hair:

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Nowhere close to as attractive as his sister.

 
Vince R. said:
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Vince R. said:
I'm sorry but this probably the worst comparison/ analysis of a player I have ever seen. I question whether Zac Lee was an actual D1 QB.
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Then you fail to understand the context of what a torn elbow and a HC/OC shutting down an offense do to a quarterback's "sex appeal" factor.
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I believe his lack of ability played into the shutting down of the offense. At any point of his career I did not see a capable qb for a major D1 team. Tommy is better already.
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I don't know if I'm the only one that finds myself with literally nothing to do at work a lot of the time, but I stumbled across this the other day. Didn't watch through all of it, but enough of it to confirm that when he was healthy Zac Lee was a total gamer. Way moreso than people, such as yourself remember.

So if anyone else has nothing to do today..

 
Per Beck, the team has various challenges throughout the summer which seem to be non-football related (tug-of-war, etc). Players can challenge other players to win a "Golden Helmet". Armstrong is said to be undefeated so far this summer. Speaks to great competitiveness.

Beck also said that Stanton is the best "technician" of the QBs right now. I still wonder if this will end up putting Stanton in front at some point. TA can do a lot of things well but he is sloppy with his footwork when throwing short, quick passes. He seems to me to rely on his (very good) arm strength too much.

 
I think the year long progression of Armstrong will be quite impressive. But I think even without the game experience a years worth of progression for Stanton will be even more impressive. If he can't take the job this year, 2015 may be his team.

 
walksalone said:
I have a feeling this could be T-Mart 2.0...

He hits a hot streak, and you'll get the f*ck Martinez crowd chiming in, and if he has a bad stretch, you'll hear from the he'll never be better than Martinez crowd chiming in...

I just hope he's learned from his experiences, and builds off of that. I get worried that sometimes he'll go into "I have to win this myself mode" when the chips are down and gets impatient...
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I don't think fans will be as vitriol towards Armstrong if he plays at or near the same level Martinez did, and I think that has a lot to do with TA's personality. Fair or not, a lot of people criticized TM because of his personality, or lack there of, when it came to press conferences and sideline demeanor.

I'm confident Armstrong will be better this year because he will have had the offseason, spring, summer sessions and fall camp to prepare. It'd be harder not to get better with that much time put in. How much better is the question, obviously, and I think he'll make some strides.

He'll still make mistakes and probably some costly ones. I'm with you though that I hope he's learned from past experiences. We've had a QB that turned the ball over way too much the last several years. We need one that can really limit those turnovers far better than we have.

 
Armstrong has already shown that he is willing and ready to take ownership for his faults and mistakes. It's a strong quality we didn't see out of TM unfortunately.

Not like it is a huge factor or really any factor in how Tommy plays, but that sense of accountability that he displays is also what I like about him.

 
Enhance89 said:
walksalone said:
I have a feeling this could be T-Mart 2.0...

He hits a hot streak, and you'll get the f*ck Martinez crowd chiming in, and if he has a bad stretch, you'll hear from the he'll never be better than Martinez crowd chiming in...

I just hope he's learned from his experiences, and builds off of that. I get worried that sometimes he'll go into "I have to win this myself mode" when the chips are down and gets impatient...
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I don't think fans will be as vitriol towards Armstrong if he plays at or near the same level Martinez did, and I think that has a lot to do with TA's personality. Fair or not, a lot of people criticized TM because of his personality, or lack there of, when it came to press conferences and sideline demeanor.

I'm confident Armstrong will be better this year because he will have had the offseason, spring, summer sessions and fall camp to prepare. It'd be harder not to get better with that much time put in. How much better is the question, obviously, and I think he'll make some strides.

He'll still make mistakes and probably some costly ones. I'm with you though that I hope he's learned from past experiences. We've had a QB that turned the ball over way too much the last several years. We need one that can really limit those turnovers far better than we have.
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I think the highs won't be as high with Armstrong, as compared to Martinez. And the lows won't be as low. When Taylor Martinez first stepped on the field no one had an answer for the way we ran the spread option. I don't think any other college football team had ever fielded a QB with as fast of a burst as T-Magic had back in 2010, and used him as effectively as we did. Heck, the first time he ran the ball it was a 45 yd TD; and 3 of his first 5 runs ended up in the endzone (plus another 40+ yard run as well). Three of five!! That first season, in particular the first half of his redshirt year, was magical for T-Magic. We didn't see that last year for Armstrong for a couple of reasons. He doesn't have the explosive burst of speed that Martinez had that first season. And D-coordinators have figured out how to key on the spread option. But over Martinez's career his performance dropped. Mostly for reasons beyond his control. First, every D-coordinator we faced spent sleepless nights figuring out how to contain Martinez running the spread option. And for the most part, they did. Eventually. Second, a lot of T-Magic's awesome long runs came against relatively slower non-conf opponents. Sure, he had some great highlights against our Big X foes. But he had more against the likes of Western Kentucky and Fresno State. The spread option and other plays that key off of Martinez's speed just don't work as well against BigX DBs who run a 4.4 forty. Or faster. Third, Martinez lost a step due to injury. I suspect his injuries were much worse these past two years than we knew about. This severely reduced his effectiveness since, as we well know, Martinez probably isn't going to beat many teams solely with his arm. I think Armstrong is perhaps a bit better passer than Martinez, but lacks the explosive first step when he runs the ball. I don't think Beck will use Armstrong in the same way we used Martinez early on in his career. So I don't think Armstrong will have the awesome highlights that Martinez had. But he won't experience the frustrating lows either. IMHO.

Don't get me wrong about Martinez. I've always been a huge fan of his. Despite making the occasional JOKE at his expense on this board. :-) Those highlight runs of his early on in his career are unequaled by any other QB on any other team. Evar. I still go back and watch his highlights once in a while. They're just fun to watch. LINK
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/edit: I think the gangsta soundtrack of that T-Magic highlight youtube in my LINK has a few f-bombs. Maybe NSFW audio.

 
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